Dreams and Destiny
by Julia456
Summary: With the Snakemen defeated, everything's back to normal… or maybe not. 200X, post-series, Teela-centric.
1. party fouls

**Note:** This one has been languishing on my computer for far, _far_ too long... turns out it helps when you, like, work on things. Anyway, this is my first actual fic for this fandom, but shout-out to preschool me in 1986, playing MOTU with my dolls. (Barbie makes a good evil henchman, btw.)

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 _"Perhaps the past and present, your dreams and destiny,_

 _are more intertwined than we know."_

– The Sorceress, "The Power of Grayskull"

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 **One: party fouls**

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"Teela, dear, you look lovely."

It was the fifth time tonight someone had told her that, but at least this time it wasn't a middle-aged nobleman in his cups, or a young man with a bet to win, or a snide court girl. Still. It took Teela a moment to put on a smile before she turned.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," she told the queen, dropping into a half-hearted curtsy. "And thank you for the, um, dress."

Queen Marlena smiled. "The seamstress did wonders, didn't she?"

The hem was too long, and the stays dug into her ribs, and she couldn't eat anything for fear of it falling into what the seamstress had politely referred to as _milady's décolletage_. But you didn't say things like that to the queen who'd had one of her own dresses made over so you could wear it to a party.

Even if you didn't want to wear it. Or go to the party.

"The color is nice," Teela said, being as honest as she could.

The queen's smile took on a knowing gleam. "You'd rather be in armor."

The snake staff didn't fit on her flimsy belt, and the lady's maid who'd helped her get into the dress had made such a fuss about the concealed blaster that Teela had reluctantly left that behind as well. At least she'd won the battle over her hair: it was in her usual style, not the painfully fashionable updo the maid had wanted.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Teela looked around the great hall again, barely rebuilt in time for the occasion, and grimaced. "Actually, I'd rather not be here at all."

"Mm." The queen took a glass from a passing servant's tray and lifted it in a brief toast. "This celebration is for all of the Masters who so bravely defended Eternia from the Snakemen – including you, Captain. Let the people honor you. You've more than earned it."

In another corner of the great hall, applause broke out; Man-E-Faces and Orko were reenacting the last battle against King Hiss, somehow without any magic going awry. The other Masters were scattered around the hall, enjoying themselves despite likewise being stuffed into finery. People were dancing, laughing, talking, having a wonderful time.

And, best of all, there were zero Snakemen threatening an attack.

"I know," Teela said, sighing as deeply as she could in the stays, "but… I would feel better if I could check in with the Guard. With so many of the Masters here, it would be the perfect time for Skeletor to try something."

Marlena smiled again. "I'm sure He-Man can manage any problems that arise tonight. By the way, have you seen Adam?"

No, she hadn't. And, looking around now, there wasn't any sign of him in the hall. Teela bit down on a curse. He was probably asleep somewhere, just like he always was – when he wasn't running from the battlefield.

If Adam made her drag him out of the stables in this dress, she would _kill_ him, crown prince or not.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I'll go find -"

The queen, too polite to interrupt, quirked an eyebrow instead, and Teela stopped herself mid-sentence. Something about this was amusing Her Majesty to no end. "I know where Adam is, dear. I suppose what I meant to say was – has he seen _you_?"

Teela frowned. "I'm… not sure I understand."

"Never mind," the queen said, still smiling. "Come by the royal apartments tomorrow morning, as soon as you're able. Now that the Snakemen have been dealt with, some things in the palace will be changing."

"Of course, Your Majesty." Another curtsy. She already missed bowing.

Marlena nodded and began to move off, though she paused a few steps away and looked over her shoulder, eyes dancing. "And Teela – I order you to enjoy the festivities."

Teela stared after the queen for a moment, then grinned. Enjoy herself, huh? She had a few ideas about that –

"Teela!"

She whirled, one hand going to the staff that wasn't on her belt. "Adam! What is it?"

Her best friend, who was not only awake but wearing his formal court clothes, grabbed her by the arm and tugged. He was slightly out of breath, as if he'd been running. "Thank the Elders. Come on!"

She let him drag her through the crowd of party-goers, dodging white-haired duchesses and near-sighted counts. _Without_ tripping over her skirts, thank you very much. "What are you doing?"

"Escaping!"

Teela looked behind them, but saw only a handful of teenage girls – probably the daughters and granddaughters of the nobility they'd been ducking around. "Escaping what?"

" _Them_ ," Adam said, slowing down at last. He made a face. "They've been hanging on me all night. What's wrong with girls?"

"I don't know," Teela said, a touch acidly. She pulled her arm free of his grip, courteously not breaking any of his bones in the process. They'd come to a stop just shy of the cleared space being used for dancing, and the music was much louder here. She had to raise her voice: "If I see one, I'll ask."

He grinned at her – an expression she'd seen a million times. It was the one that had mischief hiding behind it, and used to be followed by a dare to put spiders down an important person's shirt, or raid the kitchens after midnight, or some other bit of devilry. "Oh, sorry, not you," he said over the noise. "I meant _normal_ girls."

She snorted. "If that's supposed to make me want to help you escape…"

"You're part of the Royal Guard," he said, pointing at her. Then he pressed a hand to his chest, wide-eyed with false innocence. " _I'm_ part of the royal family. You have to protect me. There's an oath and everything."

"Okay, fine," Teela said, rolling her eyes and trying very hard not to smile. "How may I aid you in your escape, O Prince Adam?"

"Dance with me," he said immediately.

She glanced at the dancers, then back at him, then at the determined flock of girls steadily moving in their direction. Putting Adam into the middle of what was, essentially, a well-lit, open stage - "That's a terrible escape plan."

"No, it'll give me time to come up with one." The wide eyes were back. "Please, Teela?"

She narrowed her own eyes and gave him a hard stare, not really thinking it over but wanting to make him sweat a little. After all, he was asking her to _dance_ , in a _dress_ , in front of most of Eternia.

Thank the Elders she'd insisted on flat shoes.

"Your Highness," she said, making her best, deepest curtsy, gaze demurely on the floor, voice perfectly polite, "I would be honored to accept this dance."

Adam stared at her as she rose. Stared long enough, with a blank enough expression, that Teela began to wonder if some of _milady's décolletage_ hadn't made an appearance during that curtsy. If it had, well, she would just have to leave the party and go find a dragon to eat her.

But then he grinned broadly, exclaimed, "Great!" and unceremoniously dragged her onto the dance floor right as the musicians finished one song and struck up for another.

It was a folk dance, where several partners joined in two lines to make the figures. Teela was familiar with it, and so was Adam, which made sense because they'd both had the same dancing master, years ago.

The dance instruction had been for Adam only, until Teela had committed the grave tactical error of teasing him about it. The next morning she'd found herself being escorted from the training field to the dancing salon " _on the express orders of His Royal Highness the Prince._ "

Jerk.

But if he'd been trying to get even, his plan had backfired: Teela was great at dancing. And Adam, despite all his complaining, was no slouch either. They'd ended up having a lot of fun during those lessons.

He was doing a credible job now, weaving in and out and laughing whenever he missed a step, and the other dancers seemed delighted to have the crown prince in their midst. Teela caught a glimpse of the girl flock standing off to the side, watching dejectedly and-or seething with rage.

 _Ha!_ she thought, smug. That fixed _them_.

And miraculously, she managed to get through the whole thing without once stepping on her hem. Everyone on the sidelines clapped when the dance was over, even Roboto, who probably didn't understand dancing (or applauding) anyway.

Meanwhile, the flock was moving in.

Teela put herself between the girls and Adam. "So what's the plan?"

He scratched at the back of his head and looked sheepish. Elders! He'd forgotten all about his "escape plan," she could tell. Sometimes she thought he was ageing backwards, becoming more of a child while the rest of them were maturing. "Um… another dance?"

" _Ugh_ ," she said, but obligingly extended her hand. "You owe me."

"Believe me, I know," Adam said, taking her hand as the music began. This time it wasn't a folk dance, but one of the courtly ones: you only danced with your partner. He winced. "Okay, I _really_ owe you."

Two dances, in a row, with the prince, would be enough to set every gossipy tongue in Eternia to wagging. It was ridiculous, of course, but pretty much everything about court was. Another reason Teela preferred open combat.

"Yes you do," she said archly. "I'll take my payback tomorrow morning. First light. Training field. Bring a sword."

He groaned, and for good reason; she was absolutely going to mop the floor with him. "Come on, Teela -"

"Or… I can let a _normal girl_ cut in."

"Fine, fine," he said, scowling at her. He spun her out into a reasonably graceful twirl, and when she got back, he'd returned to his usual good humor. "So what did my mother want?"

Teela shrugged. "She wants to discuss something with me. Changes around the palace."

"Yeah, no kidding." He nodded over Teela's shoulder; on the turn, she looked that way and saw King Randor and her father talking. "Father's got this grand diplomatic plan to make a tour of our allies – some of them got hit by the Snakemen pretty hard. Harder than us, if you can believe that. We're going to offer aid where it's needed, renegotiate treaties, all of it."

"Wow," she said, impressed. "That's going to take months."

Adam sighed. "Yeah."

Teela looked towards the king again, mentally calculating the security arrangements, though that honor would presumably go to her father. "It's a long time to be away from the palace, especially now."

"Which is why _I'm_ going," Adam said grimly. "Not Father."

A laugh slipped out before she could catch it. " _You?_ "

"I've made diplomatic trips before," he said, indignant. "Successfully! You were there for some of them, remember?"

In a dress even more galling than this, once. The toe of her shoe caught in her hem, and she hastily corrected. "So what's the matter this time? Afraid it'll cut into your busy napping schedule?"

It was hardly the worst thing she'd ever said to him, but for some reason Adam's face clouded over with true hurt and Teela realized, belatedly, that she'd gone too far.

With perfect timing, the song ended. They came to a stop amid more applause.

"Adam," she said, but the words _I'm sorry_ stuck in her throat. She wasn't sorry, not really. There was too much to do to defend Eternia, and he was doing too little of it. She shouldn't have to apologize for pointing that out.

At the same time, he was her friend, and she'd struck home, with what she knew was a low blow.

"I –"

"Thank you, Captain," he said, cutting her off. He gave her a formal bow, but his eyes were cold and his voice was decidedly unfriendly as he finished: "For doing me the honor of this dance."

It was a dismissal. A rude one, at that. She bobbed the worst curtsy of her life and left the dance floor, pushing past some of the flocking court girls on her way. Half of them shot her evil looks; the other half sneered. She couldn't have cared less.

The twinge of regret was already turning into anger. How dare he act like that! He _knew_ he was the laughingstock of Eternia – the lazy, cowardly prince who couldn't be counted on in battle except to run away. And he was going to dismiss _her_ for telling him the truth? Some friend!

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father moving towards her. The last thing she wanted was another lecture about being patient with Adam because she "didn't know the kinds of burdens he carried." Please!

She shook her head, veered off into the thickest part of the crowd, then made her way outside the hall altogether. Hopefully her father would take the hint and not follow her.

The queen had ordered her to enjoy the party. At this point, there was only one way to obey.

Teela headed for her quarters. She needed her staff and armor if she was going to patrol.


	2. diplomatic

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 **Two: diplomatic**

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First light.

Training field.

No Adam.

Teela wasn't surprised – she hadn't expected him to show up in the first place, let alone after their sort-of argument – but his absence left another bitter stone in the pit of her stomach.

She was tired of being disappointed by her best friend. Why couldn't he just do the right thing these days? He'd turned sixteen and promptly become a failure.

Maybe this tour would be a good thing. If nothing else, it would relieve Adam of the burden of pretending he'd _love_ to fight, if only Cringer hadn't gotten a paw stuck in the library bookshelf right when the alarm sounded, etcetera.

And she would welcome some distance between them.

Instead of swords, she worked with her staff against the battle orbs for an hour, then bathed quickly and changed into her armor for her meeting with the queen.

The workout had settled her mood, at least. She wasn't happy, not by a long shot, but she was prepared to be a calm, professional Captain of the Royal Guard. Adam's failures weren't going to drag _her_ down.

Queen Marlena received her immediately, standing from the table where she'd been writing and walking towards her as Teela entered the royal apartments. Like most of the palace, evidence of reconstruction was everywhere; the grand window, for example, was half boarded over, and the scent of new lumber and stone dust was thick. "Teela, dear, thank you for coming."

Teela bowed. Ha! So much better than a curtsy. "Of course, Your Majesty."

Marlena smiled at her warmly, studying her for a moment. It was far too motherly an appraisal to make Teela nervous. "We missed you at breakfast. You aren't feeling ill?"

Teela and her father took most of their meals with the royal family – a privilege reserved for the king's Man-At-Arms and others in the inner circle.

"No, I'm fine," Teela said. Difficult to attend breakfast when you were sort-of avoiding two of the people there. She deployed her usual excuse: "I was training."

The queen's motherly expression didn't alter. "I'll have something brought up while we talk, then. You have a busy day ahead."

"Thank you, ma'am," Teela said, not faking her gratitude. She was starving; a few ration biscuits while doing up her hair didn't cut it.

Marlena dispatched a servant to the kitchens, then took a seat at her writing table again, gracefully settling her skirts as she did so. "There. That should only take a minute. Please sit, Teela."

There was an empty chair across the table from the queen. Teela sat. She didn't have any skirts to settle, thank goodness.

"Did you have fun last night?" the queen asked, taking up her pen and beginning where she'd left off. It wasn't a letter, but some sort of official document, to judge from the heading. Among other duties, the Queen of Eternia was responsible for the running of the palace; right now that included rebuilding what Serpos had destroyed, so she was a busy woman. "I noticed you disappeared rather early."

"I did," Teela admitted. "Patrolling sounded like the most fun I could have."

Marlena signed the document with a royal flourish. Her eyes flicked up to meet and hold Teela's. There was a hardness in their depths that belied her soft-spoken manner, and Teela suddenly remembered that Queen Marlena was no stranger to combat herself. "More fun than arguing with my son, I would imagine."

Teela cleared her throat, knowing she was turning red and hating it – almost as much as she hated the guilt rising along with the flush. "Um. Yes, Your Majesty."

"Prince Adam's duties will be increasing," the queen said, voice still mild, returning her attention to the paper. She folded it in neat, crisp lines. "He'll be making a diplomatic tour in the King's name."

"I know," Teela said. "Uh, that is – Adam told me last night. Before the, um. Argument. He said he'll be gone for months."

Marlena affixed her seal to the folded paper and set it aside. "Yes, several months, most likely. You'll be joining him."

Caught entirely by surprise, Teela blurted, " _What?_ " before she could remember that it was bad etiquette to exclaim, in total disbelief, to the queen's face.

The hard glint returned to the queen's eyes. "You'll be in charge of security for the entire tour."

Teela opened her mouth, then shut it again. She didn't know what she wanted to say. Luckily, she was saved by the return of the queen's servant, bearing a tray of food. The man set the tray on the table, bowed, and took the sealed document when Marlena gestured to it.

"And close the door, thank you," Marlena said, earning another bow. She sat with her hands in her lap, calmly regarding Teela, until the door to the room clicked softly shut. "Now. Where were we, dear?"

Pulling herself together as best she could, Teela said, "It's – it's a big change, Your Majesty."

"And quite an honor," Marlena said gently. "Randor and I think very highly of you, Captain."

"Thank you," Teela said. She shifted in her chair, glancing down at her lap and then back up. "But… I have duties here, and with the Masters –"

"You'll be relieved of those, of course, until your return. I promise that you'll be able to pick up exactly where you left off." The queen paused thoughtfully, a small smile in the corners of her eyes. "Though a promotion would probably be in order."

Oh no. Teela was not going to be bribed with a promotion.

Although…

No. She took a sugared pastry from the tray and popped it into her mouth before she could cram her foot in there instead, and made a noncommittal noise while she tried to figure out a better response.

The smile spread to the rest of Marlena's face.

Teela swallowed, then looked away, feeling all of two years old. But that was ridiculous. She was a Captain of the Royal Guard and a Master of the Universe. She could face her queen. And she did, drawing together what was left of her professional façade. "Your Majesty, I don't know if I'm the right person for this position."

"You're the only person," the queen said, firm and swift. "That was the sole condition I demanded of Randor: that you be the one to accompany Adam."

 _But I don't want to babysit that coward!_ It was on the tip of her tongue, so she grabbed another pastry and chewed until the urge passed. Thank the Elders for that tray of food. "I'm very honored, I'm just wondering… Why?"

"Adam needs to prove that he will be a good king. This will give him that chance." She paused, then surprised Teela all over again by reaching across the table, beckoning for her hands. Confused, Teela obligingly put her hands in Marlena's; the queen disregarded the sugar stickiness on her fingertips, clasping them as if…

…as if Teela was her daughter, and not the warrior who kept insulting her son.

Teela swallowed again. The guilt, lodged hard in her throat, made it difficult.

"And you'll forgive me my meddling," Queen Marlena said quietly, her kind smile gone wistful, "but it would be the perfect time for the two of you to mend things, away from the court."

"Your Majesty," Teela said, helpless.

"Please, Teela," the queen said, squeezing her hands, eyes searching. "No one can be king alone. Adam needs a true friend. He needs _you_."

Ancients, she'd thought the guilt was bad before. Teela bit her lip and looked away, every snide comment, every disgusted look, every scornful thought she'd had of Adam racing through her mind.

But it had all been the truth. _He deserved all of it_.

The anger roared up out of nowhere, setting her heart to pounding, nearly snatching the breath from her. She was furious with Adam for putting her here. She was furious with the queen for asking this of her.

"I… I promise to keep him safe," she managed.

It was part of the Guards' oath, anyway.

Queen Marlena squeezed her hands one more time, then released them. If she knew how Teela was feeling, she didn't show it.

"Your orders will be forthcoming," she said, warm as ever. She picked up her pen and held it, poised, over a fresh sheet of paper. "Until then, this matter is confidential."

Taking the chance that the conversation was over, Teela stood and bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Oh, Teela – take some of this with you," the queen added, waving a hand at the tray. "You hardly ate anything."

Anger tended to kill her appetite, but she put on a smile and did as requested. Once outside, she tossed her fistful of pastries and fruit into the nearest shrubbery, then dusted off her hands.

She made a beeline for her father's workshop.

If she was going to be removed from her duties and sent away for several months, King Randor would have asked his Man-at-Arms first. That meant her father had agreed. And _that_ meant she had a few things to say to him.

None of the Masters were hanging around the workshop when she got there. Good; she didn't want them there to be reasonable or take her father's side.

Adam wasn't there, either.

Teela wasn't sure she was pleased about that.

Her father was at one of the workbenches, head bent over a deconstructed blaster. It wasn't part of his job to make repairs on faulty equipment, but he liked to do it, and no one in the Guard was ever foolish enough to gainsay him. His welding visor was down, and electricity was sparking from his tools.

"Father!" she said loudly.

He glanced up, eyes hidden behind the dark lenses, then refocused on his work. "Good morning, Teela."

She took a step closer, hands clenching into fists at her sides. "Did you know?"

He laid one tool aside and picked up another. "About what?"

The last frayed lines of her self-control snapped. She slammed her palm onto the scarred surface of the workbench, hard enough to make the smaller bits and pieces shake and shudder. "Stop _pretending_!"

Father wasn't impressed. He never was; he considered anger a weakness in a soldier. He sat back and lifted his visor to look her in the eyes, so cool and calm that her fury spiraled higher in response.

"If you mean the diplomatic tour," he said in a level voice, "then yes, I did know. The king approached me yesterday. I _intended_ to tell you last night. And this morning, if you'd have come to breakfast."

She remembered seeing him in the crowd, remembered deliberately avoiding him. It made her waver for a moment, but she was still furious. She crossed her arms over her chest. "And you agreed? You thought I'd just _love_ to be the prince's _babysitter_ for an entire _year_?"

"A few months. And bodyguard and babysitter are very different things," Father said.

So reasonable. So logical. So _infuriating_.

"Not when he runs away like –"

"Teela," he said, voice sharp. "Don't speak ill of your future king."

She barked a laugh. "Some king! Everyone knows he's a coward."

"Adam is not a coward, regardless of what people say – and I wish you wouldn't. But that perception is why he needs this tour," Father said. He was frowning at her now, disapproval pulling down the ends of his mustache and furrowing his brow. "He _will_ be king, and if he can't prove his abilities on the battlefield –"

"He hasn't got any," she said, not quite under her breath.

Father gave her a warning look, but continued: "He'll need to show people that he can keep the peace in other ways. It's a good plan, Teela; Adam's a natural diplomat. The king is trying to do right by his son."

She threw up her hands. "And you're so busy helping him that you're ruining your daughter's career!"

Father made an impatient, exasperated noise. "This is going to _help_ your career, which you'd realize if you stopped to think rationally about it." It was a dismissal, and it stung. He lowered the visor again and turned away from her. "And with any luck, it'll help you remember why you two were always such good friends."

"Ugh! Why does everyone care if we're friends?" Teela demanded, again feeling like a small child. It didn't improve with repetition.

" 'Everyone'?" he asked the blaster.

"You and the queen."

Father shrugged. Sparks flew, reflecting back in his visor. "Perhaps Marlena and I are simply seeing a larger picture than you are, Teela."

She narrowed her eyes, watching him closely, but what little she could see of his face remained impassive. Even through the veil of her anger, she was suspicious. It made sense for motherly, warm-hearted Queen Marlena to fuss over the state of a friendship. It made much less sense for a no-nonsense soldier like Father to do the same.

A feeling nagged at her, one she'd often had lately when her father stuck up for Adam: that there was something hanging _just_ out of her reach, _just_ beyond the edge of her vision, and if she could only move a little faster, she could catch it.

"Larger picture" indeed.

She opened her mouth to press the argument further – then closed it when an alarm began blaring.

Father immediately abandoned the blaster, rising and starting at a run for the Wind Raiders. "Skeletor."

Teela was hard on his heels. A fight with Skeletor and his warriors sounded like the perfect thing right now, especially because Bonehead hadn't had the courtesy to wait longer than a week past the final defeat of the Snakemen. Maybe he thought he could catch them napping. Well, he was in for a nasty surprise on that front. "Didn't waste any time, did he?"

Her father only grunted in reply. Then he said, "The Sorceress says He-Man is already at Castle Grayskull."

A _really_ nasty surprise. She grinned. Playing clean-up for He-Man was okay too. "That's lucky."

Another grunt.

Many of the other Masters were already at the Wind Raiders. Teela hopped in beside Ram Man, who clapped her on the shoulder enthusiastically.

She knew what she was going to see, but she still looked across the courtyard as they took off, unable to stop the faint flicker of hope.

There was no sign of Adam.


	3. bait and switch

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 **Three: bait and switch**

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Her head ached.

Teela held very still, trying to piece things together. She was curled on her side; the ground beneath her was stone, roughly hewn and cold; the air was nearly as frigid as the floor; water dripped somewhere in the distance. It smelled of dank and damp and darkness.

 _Underground_ , she thought fuzzily. _In a cavern._

Her skull ached, just above the join of her neck. Obviously someone had struck her there, and then she'd ended up in the cavern.

 _How…?_

She struggled with gray, slippery memories for a few moments. She'd been at Castle Grayskull, fighting… Whiplash? No, Clawful… and she'd taken the big brute down hard… and something had happened to her father, he'd called out in pain, and she'd turned to go to him…

…and that was it. She couldn't remember anything else.

So one of Skeletor's henchmen had snuck up behind her and knocked her out. Hard to say which one. Not that it mattered. If she'd been captured, then she was in Snake Mountain, and that meant she was in a lot of trouble.

She opened her eyes cautiously, not wanting to attract attention if any of the bad guys were around. It was a good-sized chamber, walls vanishing upwards into a stalactite blackness, a few lanterns dotting the floor at the perimeter. From the unnatural violet color of the flames, they were magical.

She was alone.

Teela gave up caution and pushed herself to a sitting position, which sent a dull spike of pain through her head and neck muscles. She automatically reached up to – carefully – probe the sore place, then realized she wasn't restrained in any way.

Her hands flew to her belt. The communicator was long gone, but her snake staff was still there.

That didn't bode well. If she wasn't restrained, and her weapon hadn't been confiscated, it meant Skeletor thought there was no chance of her escaping the chamber.

"Well, that's great," she said under her breath. She climbed to her feet, wobbled for a second, and began looking around in earnest.

There was a large circle carved into the rock beneath her, wide enough to hold Ram Man with room left over for Mekanek. She'd been lying in the center. Outside the circle – a summoning circle, it had to be – the floor was covered with magical sigils and script.

Bad to worse.

Skeletor wouldn't think twice about performing all kinds of evil spells on her, either to further some plot or merely to spite her father and the king. But, realistically, this was probably a trap for He-Man. Which made her the bait.

 _We'll just see about that._ Teela hated being the damsel in distress, and she intended to communicate her feelings on the matter very, very clearly when she got free.

She picked a direction at random and took a few steps. As soon as her boot's toe touched the inner edge of the circle, purple light flared and magical energy slammed down in a curving wall before her.

Teela jumped back instinctively. In a blink, the wall raced all the way around the circle, sealing her in. "No!" she exclaimed, frustrated.

A woman's laughter, rich and smooth and full of scorn, drifted out from the shadows.

"Poor little fool," Evil-Lyn said, stepping into the flickering light of the nearest lantern. She rested one hand on her hip; the other curled around her staff. "Don't tell me you thought you'd simply walk out of here?"

Evil-Lyn hadn't been at the battle. Teela had noticed mainly because the witch, Elders knew why, always liked to single her out. According to He-Man, Skeletor and Evil-Lyn hadn't been on the best terms lately, and Teela had assumed Evil-Lyn was skipping out of spite.

But maybe she'd been there, after all. Lurking. Waiting for an ambush. Waiting to grab the _bait_.

Teela crossed her arms over her chest, lifting her chin confidently. "Since that's how I usually leave Snake Mountain – yeah."

One eyebrow arched, mocking. "Snake Mountain. Is that where we are? Are you certain?"

Well. Not anymore.

Evil-Lyn laughed again. "You really are that stupid, aren't you. This has nothing to with Skeletor. Or, shall we say, nothing to do with _helping_ Skeletor."

So He-Man's report had been accurate. Being dangled over the maw of a nightmare creature probably was a sore spot; Teela decided to poke at it. "I guess it must be hard to work in the shadow of such a powerful magician."

"Powerful!" Evil-Lyn scoffed.

"More powerful than _you_."

The eyebrows drew into a fierce glare, and Teela mentally added a point to her side of the board. "You should watch your tongue, brat. I don't need it for this spell."

If Evil-Lyn thought that was going to send Teela cowering silently into a corner…

Teela shifted her stance, one hand reaching for the staff on her belt. "What spell?" she demanded.

"You'll find out soon enough." The witch crossed the floor, delicately stepping around the mystical symbols, and came to a stop just outside the sealed circle. She gestured carelessly at the magic wall – though the sharp expression in her eyes was anything but careless. "After all, I can't possibly perform it without you."

"Good luck – I don't have any magic," Teela said, scowling at her.

Unless you counted some temporary telepathy from a blood transfusion. She didn't.

Evil-Lyn tsked derisively. "Don't flaunt your ignorance, child. A translocation spell such as this has very specific requirements. Why, I've searched all of Eternia for a suitable candidate! What a surprise to find that Man-At-Arms' idiot daughter is positively _overflowing_ with magical energy."

Despite herself, Teela began to feel uneasy. _Evil-Lyn sounds awfully sure about this_ , she thought. _Elders! Now I wish I_ _ **was**_ _just the bait!_

She pulled her staff from her belt and expanded it, pointing the snake head at Evil-Lyn. "Magic or no magic, I'll never help you!"

Evil-Lyn threw back her head and laughed. Mocking. "As though I would ever need your _help_! No – all you'll do is stand there like a stone. Simple enough even for _your_ limited intellect."

Teela's hands tightened around her staff. "What makes you think I'm going to cooperate?"

Evil-Lyn's smile was cruel. "You don't have a choice," she purred.

The curving wall of magic shifted and rippled, daring Teela to touch it. f she did, she'd probably be knocked on her tail, electrocuted, or both. Or worse.

She was trapped.

But she wasn't going to admit that. "I'll find a way," she said, glaring.

"Oh, please. Do spare me the heroic speech." Evil-Lyn's eyes began to glow, and magic shimmered in the air around her hands and her staff. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to begin before that muscle-bound oaf shows up and ruins things."

The sigils marked around the room flared to life as well. Teela stepped back into the center of the circle, collapsing her staff as she did so. With whatever magic was about to start flying around, she didn't need to make herself a bigger target.

 _Ha! As if you aren't in the bull's-eye already_ , she told herself.

She returned her staff to her belt anyway and took a ready stance, weight in the balls of her feet, muscles tensed.

Evil-Lyn began reciting an incantation in no language Teela could recognize, voice low and urgent.

As if in response, a titanic _boom_ sounded elsewhere. The chamber shook; dust and small fragments of rock rained down from the ceiling.

He-Man.

Teela couldn't fight – Elders, she couldn't even leave the blasted circle! – but there was nothing to prevent her from warning him.

"He-Man!" Teela yelled, as loudly as she could, cupping her hands around her mouth just in case it helped. "It's Evil-Lyn – she's casting some kind of spell! Hurry!"

The light from the magical sigils became searing. An unnatural wind whipped through the chamber, guttering the flames in the lanterns and making Evil-Lyn's clothes flap and flutter madly.

The witch didn't seem to notice. If anything, her chanting grew louder. More triumphant.

Another massive impact, closer now. The magical wall trapping Teela within the circle glowed brighter and brighter, and the wind rose to a howl. There seemed to be too much noise, too much light. It went on and on.

Then, cutting through the chaos, she heard He-Man call out, " _Teela!_ "

He'd come into the chamber on the opposite side of Evil-Lyn, sword drawn and ready. Larger than life and twice as heroic, and it was more than a little embarrassing to find herself in need of his help… again.

She hadn't seen more than a glimpse of him at Castle Grayskull; he looked different somehow, Teela thought, then realized he was no longer wearing his Snakemen armor. Back to basics for everyone, it seemed.

If only the basics didn't include _bait_.

"I can't get free!" she shouted at him.

"Just hold on!" he told her, steady and confident, as he circled cautiously around towards the witch.

Teela wanted to believe him – she really did – but magical energy was crackling along the floor beneath her feet, tracing arcane patterns before blinking out again, over and over.

For some reason, it reminded her of running through the communicator frequencies, trying to find the right one.

And that was a bit concerning.

He-Man had reached the witch, who stopped chanting, though the wind and light didn't abate. "Let her go, Evil-Lyn!"

"A valiant try," Evil-Lyn said, scornful again, raising her voice to be heard over the wind. Her eyes flashed with power. "But too little, too late!"

 _Oh, Elders_ -

A portal spiraled open at Teela's feet, black and red and purple and _wrong_. She didn't have time for more than a quick, instinctive breath before it swept upwards.

The last thing she saw was He-Man's face as he dove for her. His eyes wide with fright, his fair hair whipped by the wind, for that half a moment she thought he looked – he looked exactly like –


	4. la demoiselle et la détresse

**Four: la demoiselle et la détresse**

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The world folded and unfolded.

Teela stumbled, then righted herself, her heels thumping down on hard stone, one-two, in an instinctive fighting stance. Even as nausea twisted thickly through her guts and her vision doubled and blurred, she tried to take stock of her new surroundings.

Because they _were_ new. She wasn't in a cavern anymore, being menaced by Evil-Lyn or rescued by He-Man. In fact, she'd never seen anything like this place in her life.

She was at the foot of a large, stepped dais. At the top was something – a throne, a table, an altar, she wasn't sure. Identical stone faces, mouths open in silent snarls, looked down from the circular walls. Everything glowed with a deep, bloody light… and everything hummed with malevolence.

Standing directly before her, as if they'd all been having a conversation only a half-second earlier, were two women. One of the women had long black hair, a red dress, and what seemed to be a gaudy red festival mask pushed back on top of her head. She looked about ten years older than Teela, wasn't armed, and didn't carry herself like a fighter.

Not much of a threat, in other words.

The other woman was approximately Teela's own age. She had on a sensible uniform of white shirt, red vest, and dun leggings, her black boots gleamed, and her blonde hair was pulled into a short, no-nonsense braid. Both women had a large red emblem on their clothes – something like bat wings. But while the black-haired woman was blinking at Teela dumbly, the blonde was sizing her up.

The blonde girl had a blaster on her hip and a sword on her back. She narrowed her eyes at Teela. It wasn't a friendly look.

Teela went for her snake staff.

Blondie went for her blaster.

Teela's fingers plucked her weapon free a fraction faster. She expanded the staff and swept the snake-head through the air, knocking the blaster out of Blondie's hand. It went sailing, then clattered to the floor, spinning to a stop some distance away.

Not waiting to see the blaster land, Teela had already brought the other end of her staff around, hoping to connect on the follow-through. Blondie dodged with a neat, economical movement – which allowed the staff to strike the black-haired woman squarely in the temple.

The mask was knocked askew. The woman yowled and staggered, grabbing Blondie by the arm and throwing them both off-balance.

Teela turned and ran.

It wasn't cowardice; it was instinct. Every fiber of her being howled at her to _get out_.

Something evil and powerful lurked in that red room, and she needed to get as far away as possible, as fast as possible, before it took notice of her.

Luckily, the nearest exit was hard to miss: there was a grand archway right ahead of her, holding a set of mammoth doors. Also luckily, one of the doors was standing ajar. Teela dove through the gap just as Blondie retrieved her blaster and fired off a shot. It struck the door at head level – exactly where Teela's head would have been, in fact.

Teela rolled out of the dive and came up to find herself on a wide platform, high above the ground. Spread before her was a massive sprawl of a fortress, all stone and smokestacks and… glistening black bones?

Cozy.

Much closer at hand was a man wearing dull gray armor, helmet tucked under his arm, and – even better – a sky sled sitting beside him.

The man turned, plainly startled, revealing a red bat-wing emblem on his chest. He never saw Teela's staff coming, and by the time he realized she'd hooked his ankle with it, his back was slamming to the stone surface of the platform.

"Sorry!" she said brightly, not sorry at all, and hopped onto the sky sled.

Well, it _looked_ like a sky sled, at least. Up close, the markings were in a different language, and some of the controls were slightly off, but she didn't have any problem starting it up.

As she cleared the platform, Blondie burst through the door, blaster in hand.

Teela banked hard around a smokestack, pushing the sky sled to its limits, and barely avoided another shot. The next two shots were too far for any kind of accuracy, but Blondie was making a point. Teela got it.

She also understood that now would be a really good time for a miracle.

After all, she had no idea where she was, what was waiting for her on the other side of the distant, encircling walls, or how many soldiers she could expect on her tail once Blondie or the other woman sounded the alarm.

Which… yup, there it went. A siren shrilled and echoed from all corners of the fortress.

And one of her questions was answered when soldiers, bat-wings blazed in crimson across their gray chestplates, began pouring from every archway in the place. Some of them rushed towards sky sleds. Some of them rushed to platform-mounted guns.

"Elders!" Teela said, not sure if it was a curse or a prayer. She looked around quickly for the best escape route. Black bones and smokestacks everywhere, with wires and pipes lacing the air between them. Fantastic.

Then – she glimpsed an immense, wide-open gateway in the fortress wall, showing a desolate desert plateau beyond it. Red sand, red rocks. Lots of room to make an escape.

Now she just had to get there.

 _Before_ they closed the gates.

A straight approach was out of the question, especially because a barrage of blaster fire began raining down from the nearest gun platform almost as soon as she spotted the gates. She veered sharply left, then right as she saw a squadron of soldiers bearing down on her.

Okay. She could do this. She'd raced Adam through the forest plenty of times, right? She was an expert at dodging around trees and vines and so forth. And there was no difference between trees and smokestacks, or vines and wires. Right?

Yeah. Right.

A squadron formed up behind her; Teela could tell because they started shooting at her. In a way, that was a relief, because she quickly realized that, despite their crisp armor, they were terrible shots.

Or… they had been ordered to miss.

Less of a relief.

"One problem at a time!" she told herself. The priority was getting out of the fortress; _then_ she could worry about the marksmanship of her enemies.

She twisted and weaved, doubling back, circling around, trying to put some obstacles between her and the squadron without losing sight of the exit. She got herself on a reasonably straight approach again, then had to drop lower to avoid a series of pipes running horizontally between some of the smokestacks.

Too low. She caught a flash of something hurtling at her from a mid-level platform: blue-black fur, rippling muscles, gleaming claws and fangs.

Not the biggest cat she'd ever seen, but big enough to rip her throat open with one swipe of a paw.

And it was wearing a mask. A gaudy red festival mask.

This place was _weird_.

Teela jerked the sky sled hard to starboard and dropped speed by half. The cat twisted in midair, planted its hind feet on a pipe, and pushed off again – changing course to intercept her.

It was going to.

Teela accelerated hard, making the engine whine in complaint, and aimed the nose of the sled down. Maybe gravity would help her out.

Nope.

As she reached the gate, the cat landed on the front of the sky sled, claws digging into the metal and finding a perch there. It was ludicrous; the animal was half again as big as the sky sled. And of course the vehicle wasn't designed to carry that much weight. It started losing even more altitude immediately.

The cat snarled and spat, raking at Teela's face.

She managed to dodge the first swipe, then dove from the sky sled. The cat gave an angry roar and leapt also, though in a different direction. Then Teela stopped paying attention to the cat, because the rocky desert ground was rushing up at her.

She tucked and rolled into the impact, drew her staff as she came up onto her feet, and turned to face the cat. It had landed well, and was standing alert, tail lashing, muscles coiled, but looking over its shoulder at the gates.

Teela had the distinct and unpleasant impression that it was waiting for reinforcements.

Well, that would be why the gates were still standing wide open, wouldn't it?

Time to go.

She ran.

The fortress was positioned near the edge of the plateau – maybe two hundred yards before the rocky wasteland ended in a sheer cliff. The lowlands beyond seemed to be mostly forest, a few meadows scattered throughout, and a river gleaming in the strong afternoon light.

Behind her, the alarm finally stopped blaring. Against her better instincts, she looked back.

Two squadrons of soldiers, one on the ground, one in the air. Blondie was on a sky sled; the cat was loping along with the ground forces.

Oh good.

Teela ran faster, forcing herself to ignore the stitch growing in her side and the ache in her knee – Elders, when had she hurt her knee? She came to a skidding stop, breathing hard, a few paces before the cliff's edge. It looked like a sheer, dizzying drop… and a long one, too.

Teela looked over her shoulder. Yup. Soldiers still closing in.

She looked at the ground below her feet. Yup. Still a cliff.

If she tried to jump down, she'd die. If she tried to _climb_ down, she'd be an easy target for Blondie and any bat-wing soldier with half-decent aim.

And if she stayed where she was, she'd be captured for sure.

Teela collapsed her staff. She swung herself over and started descending as quickly as possible – jumping from ledge to ledge where she could, grabbing hand- and footholds where she had to.

 _You can make it,_ she told herself. It was a lie, but a comforting one.

Sky sleds whirred overhead. Also descending.

She refused to look up.

"Stop where you are!" a woman's voice called out, ringing with authority. Blondie. She and her air squadron were hovering a reasonable distance away from the cliff, keeping even with Teela and boxing her in – just in case, presumably.

Teela shouted back, "No!"

"We'll fire!"

Every instinct urged her to turn and fight, but Teela kept climbing down. "Go ahead!"

As far as communications with the enemy went, it was right on a level with six-year-olds squabbling over marbles in the palace courtyard.

About as effective, too. Blondie ordered, "Fire!" and blaster fire peppered the cliff face all around Teela.

The soldiers were still missing spectacularly, and Teela still didn't trust it. She swiftly looked for a better position than "clinging like an idiot to an exposed rocky surface" and saw a ledge jutting out – barely – several yards away and down.

She didn't hesitate. She pushed off the cliff face and jumped for it.

"Hold!" Blondie yelled. The blaster fire stopped.

Teela made the landing, somehow, and turned to face Blondie with one hand on her staff.

The girl had her blaster drawn and aimed squarely at Teela. "Surrender," she ordered, cool and steely. She didn't say the _or else_. It was implied.

Teela looked at Blondie, the squadron of soldiers, and the hundred feet of air between her boots and the ground.

 _The fight's only over when you're dead_ , she reminded herself; as long as she was alive, she had a chance.

Teela reluctantly raised both of her hands in the air. The words tasted sour: "I surrender."


	5. into the woods

**Five: into the woods**

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Despite having absolute control over the situation, Blondie didn't put away the blaster. She kept it on Teela as one of the soldiers maneuvered their sky sled over to the cliff, as Teela's hands were manacled behind her back, as the soldier hauled her aboard the sky sled, and as they moved off.

Blondie was smart. Rats. Not a desirable attribute in villains.

Much to Teela's relief, they didn't return to the wasteland plateau and the fortress. Instead, they continued downward.

Her initial assessment had been right: the lowlands were covered with forest. What she hadn't noticed, however, until she was directly overhead (and not occupied with fleeing for her life) was that there were _two_ forests. The one to the south had normal trees – green leaves, brown trunks. The far larger forest to the north looked like a giant's bowl of pastel candy run amuck: lavender, blue, pink, yellow, white. Every shade except green and brown, really.

It was such a contrast to the fortress that Teela had to look twice. What kind of a place _was_ this, that you could find candy-floss treetops within a stone's throw of black bones and smokestacks?

They landed in a clearing between the two forests, closer to the normal side. The soldier on Teela's sky sled grabbed her upper arm and roughly dragged her from the vehicle. Her balance suffered, but she absolutely _refused_ to fall on her face in front of Blondie. She kept her feet under her.

A second soldier came up and took her other arm. They held her in place while Blondie dismounted from her own sky sled and walked over.

Blondie stopped less than a foot away from Teela, hands clasped behind her back, spine straight. Deliberately close, to intimidate.

Also close enough that Teela could spit directly into her eye, if she wanted. She was thinking about it.

Razor-sharp and twice as cold, Blondie said, "One chance to keep this civil. Where is Weaver?"

Teela was genuinely taken aback. That was _not_ the question she was expecting… but it was an interesting one. So the bat-wing crew had lost somebody. Somebody important, it sounded like.

She tried to look wide-eyed and innocent. And stupid. The latter was pretty easy, given that she had zero idea what was going on. "Who?"

Blondie stepped closer. " _Shadow Weaver_."

"Sorry," Teela said. "Doesn't ring a bell."

Blondie gave her a long, searching look. "Put her on the next transport to Beast Island," she ordered the soldier beside her, not taking her attention from Teela. "We'll interrogate her there."

The soldier saluted. "Yes, Force Captain."

The two soldiers holding onto Teela's arms began to march her forward. Not that being interrogated in a place called "Beast Island" didn't sound like _oodles_ of fun, but she was getting ready to make a break for it when an arrow buried itself at Force Captain Blondie's feet.

"No!" Blondie shouted, or started to shout, because the arrow exploded in a blinding, deafening explosion of light and sound, and it cut her off mid-denial.

Chaos promptly ensued.

Suddenly the soldiers couldn't scramble away fast enough. One of the soldiers holding Teela let go; the other tightened his grip and started hauling her with him.

A second arrow, then a third and fourth, whistled past Teela's head, so close and so fast that she felt the breeze of their passing. These exploded into massive clouds of thick blue-gray smoke, further adding to the confusion. It was abruptly impossible to see more than an arm's length away.

Teela wrenched her arm free and laid the soldier out with a spinning kick to the head. She lost her balance in the process, but that was by design: she quickly drew her feet through the loop of the manacles so that her hands were in front again, then flipped herself into a standing position. That settled, she tried to remember where –

A hand closed over her shoulder and tugged. "This way!" a low voice urged.

Teela glanced around. Well, _someone_ was trying to rescue her. And the person gesturing impatiently at her was wearing a hooded brown cloak, not gray armor. No red bat-wing in sight.

She'd done more reckless things in her life. Ha! She'd done more reckless things _today_.

So she followed the brown cloak out of the hazy cloud, away from the soldiers and into the multicolored shadows of the candy forest.

Teela glanced over her shoulder as they plunged in. The smoke was dissipating, the soldiers were milling around in a panic, and Blondie was standing perfectly motionless in the midst of the storm, looking directly at Teela.

There was an expression of absolute frustration on her face. Like Teela was already gone.

Which didn't make any sense. Teela had a head start, sure, but she and the brown cloak were running on a path, one well-traveled enough to have worn a groove into the forest floor (which was, reassuringly, a normal dirt color). Not exactly a difficult trail to follow.

"Shouldn't we – _hide_?" she asked.

The brown cloak turned ahead of her, slowing to a walk. It was a boy, she saw as he threw back the hood. Her age. Reddish-brown hair, and not bad-looking. He definitely had a winning smile – wide, dashing, and cocky. Walking backwards, he gestured with one hand at the surrounding forest, the other hand being full of a longbow. "Why, we _are_ hiding, my lady! Look behind you."

Teela did. This time, there was no glimpse of the Force Captain or the soldiers. There was no well-traveled path. The only thing behind her was a solid mass of weird, pastel forest, as ancient and unmoving as Castle Grayskull.

Unease prickled at the back of her neck.

"Don't worry; the Horde can't bother us here. The Whispering Woods are enchanted," the boy confided. He winked. "Not _nearly_ as enchanting as you, of course."

Great. Her unease evaporated, along with any positive feelings she'd had about her rescuer. She gave him the same dark look she'd give any of the oozingly flirtatious boys at court.

And just like them, he didn't notice or didn't care. "What's your name, milady?"

"What's yours?" she retorted.

He grinned, unfazed by her rudeness. "They call me Bow," he said, sweeping out his cloak and making a courtly leg right there in the middle of the forest path. He had on light armor beneath the cloak – battered and utilitarian, bronze in color, with an insignia on the chestpiece that she couldn't quite make out. A small quiver was slung on his belt, and the arrows rattled against one another with the movement. "For my superior marksmanship, naturally."

"Oh, _naturally_." She gave in: "I'm Teela."

Bow started walking again. Backwards. Grinning. "Lady Teela! A lovely name to match a lovely visage."

She wondered how lovely it would all be when she broke his nose. That had been a tremendously successful strategy with the court boys… though she'd always suspected Adam had been the one to finally warn off the most stubborn of the bunch. Hard to ignore a royal order. Or a royal punch.

The path skirted around the base of a truly immense tree – blue-and-pink striped trunk, pale blue leaves, big enough for a family of five to hollow out and live in – and on the other side of the curve, a saddled horse was grazing contentedly on some purple grass.

Teela checked behind them. The path was gone, and there was no sign of Force Captain Blondie or her soldiers.

Well, whether or not Teela had left the frying pan for the fire, at least she didn't have _that_ to worry about anymore.

Bow looked up at the big tree's branches and whistled. "Kowl! I'm back!"

"It's about time!" an affronted voice exclaimed from the tree. A moment later, a large – something – flew down and landed on the horse's saddle. It looked a little bit like an bird, with big yellow eyes and a beak, but instead of wings it had gigantic multicolored ears, and it was covered in fur, not feathers. The creature crossed its arms over its chest and glared magnificently at Bow. " 'Stay here' indeed! When _I_ was the one to pass along – oh! Who is this?"

" _This_ ," Bow said grandly, "is the lady Teela, a great beauty and fearless in battle. Milady, this is Kowl, who as you can see is all fluff and no manners."

"Most honored to make your acquaintance," Kowl said to Teela, bobbing his head in her direction. He added, dry, "Please ignore Bow. As you can see, he is all fluff and no brains."

Teela grinned. She was gonna like Kowl.

"Hey!" Bow said, indignant.

Kowl ignored Bow, instead hopping to the edge of the saddle and hooting softly at Teela. "Might I say, those are quite the pair of manacles, Lady Teela."

"Just Teela," she said. She made a token attempt to pull against the manacles; it failed, of course, and the metal dug into her skin. "And you're right. I wouldn't mind getting them off."

"That's no problem," Bow said, giving the creature a dark scowl. The expression he turned on Teela, however, was all charm. "It just so happens I'm an expert with locks, milady. I'll have you free in mere moments."

Kowl made a derisive noise, though he said nothing.

Teela was skeptical too, but held her arms out for Bow to inspect. It wasn't as though _she_ could get the stupid things off, after all.

He fished around in a small pouch on his belt and, with the predictable flourish, produced a set of slender lockpicks. Then he took hold of the manacles in one hand and set to work on the locking mechanism, which was in between her wrists.

"They're magicked, you know," Kowl said to Bow.

"I can manage this alone," Bow said, voice irritated.

Another derisive hoot.

"You're not helping," Bow said, more irritated.

Suddenly, the manacles lit up with magical symbols, and Bow was knocked backwards by a soundless burst of light. He half-fell, half-staggered into the enormous tree, sending a shower of blue leaves fluttering down.

"Elders!" Teela exclaimed, at the same time Kowl cried, "My word!"

The horse pranced to one side, skittish, though it calmed quickly. Kowl flew from his perch on the saddle and landed on Bow's shoulder, peering worriedly at his face.

Teela crouched down beside him, too. "Are you okay?"

Bow groaned and put a hand to the back of his head. Kowl blinked his large eyes and said, wryly, "Not to worry, my dear. Only his pride is bruised."

"A few more things than that," Bow said, wincing. Teela felt a twinge of guilt – absurd, since she hadn't spelled the manacles. Still, she stuck out her hands and grasped his, helping to haul him to his feet. Kowl fluttered his ear-wings for balance and kept his perch.

Bow gave Teela a rueful half-grin. Some of his bravado seemed to have been knocked clear, because instead of sounding like a fawning courtier, he sounded like an ordinary archer: "Looks like this one is beyond me. Come on – Madame will want to meet you anyway."


	6. new friends

**Six: new friends**

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"So who's Madame?"

It was the natural question, Teela thought as she ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. An important one, too. Not nearly as important as _How do I get out of an enchanted forest that makes paths disappear_ , but definitely less hysterical than _What are those things watching us from the trees?!_

Because there were things. Watching. From. The. Trees.

She couldn't see them very well. In fact, for the first part of their trek through the Whispering Woods, she hadn't seen them at all. But as they'd ventured into a deeper, darker, older section of the forest, suddenly dozens of tiny, glowing eyes had begun popping up in the thick shadows, only to blink out again as soon as Teela looked straight at them. Each pair of eyes was a different color – as varied as the plant life.

Three sets of eyes in particular – purple, yellow, and green – had been following them for a while. Lately, Teela had also been hearing whispers, barely louder than rustling of the leaves, the words indistinguishable.

Granted, it was better than the black bones and red room of the fortress.

But still.

She'd drawn her staff under the pretext of using it for a walking stick, since her balance was thrown by the manacles, and now gripped it tightly.

Purple Eyes flickered in and out ten feet up an ancient, gnarled tree. She pretended not to notice.

At least the eyes provided a distraction from Bow's incessant talking. So far she'd learned that he played the harp _amazingly_ , danced _splendidly_ , and sang – "terribly," according to Kowl, who'd cut in to deliver that devastating blow, which had led to the sort of name-calling, sniping squabble that only truly good friends could have.

Teela had enjoyed that, especially because Kowl was the clear winner.

There had also been a great many odes to Teela's grace and beauty, which she'd tuned out. Adam had once said that she only really appreciated compliments about her fighting prowess. He hadn't been wrong.

"Aha! Yes, of course. Madame Razz," Kowl said now, fluffing his fur. He was riding on the horse's saddle, which Bow was leading – it not being practical for any human to ride with so many low branches hanging over this part of the path. "She's quite knowledgeable on the subject of magic, being a practitioner of the arts herself."

"She calls herself a simple hedgewitch, milady," Bow added, looking at Teela over the horse's back, "but the queen always said Madame's forgotten more about magic than any of us could learn in _ten_ lifetimes."

Kowl hooted – amused, this time. " 'Forgotten?' Hardly! It's an ongoing process."

Teela looked between Kowl and Bow. "What's that mean?"

Bow laughed, scratching at the back of his neck. "You'll see, milady."

Teela frowned. She wasn't sure she liked that answer. Well, she'd escaped once today, despite impossible odds. She could do it again.

Even if she was now in an enchanted forest.

With no clear path out.

And _things_ watching her from the shadows.

Yellow Eyes gleamed high in a tree to her left. She whipped her head up, but it was already gone.

Ugh! She couldn't stand it anymore.

"What's in the trees?" she asked Kowl, since he seemed to be the more knowledgeable one.

" _Who_ are in the trees. And that would be the Twiggets," he replied promptly. "They're part of the Woods, and -"

"And how it got its name," Bow said. He turned and waved at the trees – or rather, at the unseen magical creatures perched there, whispering among themselves. "They're perfectly harmless, milady, I assure you."

"Unless you have ill intentions," Kowl said, scowling at Bow, who shrugged. "Which you very obviously do not, my dear," he hurried to tell Teela. "Otherwise you would never have made it past the first tree!"

"So _that's_ why they didn't follow us in," Teela said, finally getting it. It went way beyond changing paths and forest spirits. She looked up at the venerable old trees, a little awestruck.

This forest – which filled most of the lowlands, if she remembered correctly – was a magical stronghold.

There was nothing like it on Eternia. Castle Grayskull was just a speck compared to this.

"As I said, Lady Teela, no member of the Horde may enter the sanctity of the Whispering Woods." Bow managed to make ducking under a branch look like an obeisance. "We are perfectly safe here – and if those villains _should_ attack, I shall lay down my very life to protect you."

"Hurray," she said, deadpan.

Kowl hooted in amusement. Bow, unfazed, winked at her, then began whistling an upbeat tune that reminded Teela of the folk dance at the party… last night? Elders. The story she'd have to tell the Masters when she got home.

 _If_ , a traitorous little voice said in her mind.

They walked for two minutes short of forever, it felt like, but suddenly the forest opened up in front of them and Teela found herself blinking into the late-afternoon sun.

A small, circular meadow. On the other side, an enormous tree standing alone: this one in shades of periwinkle with white candy-floss leaves. A door and some tiny, square windows were set in the trunk. Smoke curled lazily from a chimney that jutted out of the upper branches.

Teela blinked again.

She hadn't thought people _actually lived_ in those trees.

Okay. This place was weird.

"Here we are," Bow said cheerfully. He tossed the reins to Kowl. "See to Arrow, will you?"

With that, he strode across the meadow, calling, "Madame! Are you home?"

"His horse is named Arrow," Teela said to Kowl, one of her eyebrows lifting despite herself.

Kowl rolled his yellow eyes. "Bow has yet to be accused of subtlety."

He hooted and clicked his beak at Arrow; the horse tossed its head and snorted, then flicked its tail and started grazing on the meadow's soft, turquoise-colored grass. "There, that's sorted. Come along."

He flew after Bow, apparently without a second thought for the stranger he was leaving behind, alone, with an easy means of escape.

Teela looked behind her. The path hadn't closed itself off. But dozens of eye-lights looked back. Purple, green, and yellow were front and center.

Ugh! She pretended the shiver down her spine was only due to a cool breeze, and went to join Bow and Kowl.

"Madame!" Bow was calling, with a brisk rap on the front door. "I've brought a guest! And Kowl!"

"Just a minute, deary!" a voice sang back. It was high-pitched and nasal, with a pronounced accent and a definite old-woman quaver, but it was friendly enough for all that. "Just a minute, oh, just a minute!"

There was a series of clatters and bangs inside the treehouse, and then the door burst outward, narrowly avoiding Bow's head.

Drat.

"Bow! So wonderful to see you!" Madame Razz exclaimed. At least, Teela assumed it was her. The old lady certainly _looked_ like a doddering hedgewitch: spindly arms and legs, a stout body, bushy white hair springing every direction beneath a tattered magician's hat, and clothes that were more patches than cloth. The toe-tips of her scuffed black boots ended in funny curlicues. Her skin, weathered, wrinkled, and liver-spotted, matched the color of the tree's bark.

She was also short. The point of her hat (which was bent double under an enormous pinwheel flower) only came up to the center of Bow's chest.

Madame grabbed Bow's face in both long-fingered, bony hands, dragged him down, and noisily kissed him on first one cheek and then the other.

"Hello, Madame," he said, smiling at her. It was different from the cocky, arrogant smile he kept using on Teela; this one was soft and fond, exactly the kind of smile you would give a daffy old lady.

Madame had already moved on, her hands stretching out towards her next victim. "And Kowl!"

"Yes, yes, very good to see you," Kowl said, hastily flapping out of her reach.

Undeterred, Madame turned to Teela. "And you must be Teela," she gushed, clasping Teela's upper arm and dragging her towards the open door. "The Twiggets have been going on and on about _you_ , deary! Let's get you inside and do something about those _nasty_ manacles."

"Um… thank you," Teela said, stumbling a bit on the threshold, and barely managing to duck her head in time. Madame was a lot stronger than she looked. "It's… nice to meet you?"

Madame beamed. "Such good manners! Oh, they were right -! They always are, you know! _Wonderful_ judges of character, those dearies."

Inside, the ceiling was just high enough for Teela to stand without stooping. In between the charms, wards, amulets, and other magical bric-a-brac festooning the walls, she caught a glimpse of a spiral staircase leading upwards and a small sitting room before she was pulled into the kitchen and plunked down on a stool by the table.

Since the furniture was all built to Madame's scale, it was a little awkward. Teela's knees were mostly in her chest.

"Now, let's see…" Madame puttered around the kitchen, hat bobbing up and down as she looked for who-knows-what. It was a normal enough kitchen – not much different from the one in the palace, except for its size. Sunlight streamed in from the tiny windows. Dried herbs and flowers hung in bunches from the ceiling, and stew in a metal pot bubbled cheerfully next to a tea kettle over the fire in the hearth. "Where did I – aha! There it is."

Bow and Kowl joined them in the kitchen. Kowl landed on the table; Bow leaned against the doorframe, next to a large broom. "Anything I can do, Madame?"

Madame popped up, hat askew, a huge spellbook in her hands. Aside from the hat, she didn't really bear any resemblance to Orko, but Teela found herself strongly reminded of the little Trollan anyway. It made her smile.

"Be a dear and fix some tea," she told him, adjusting her hat. "Oh! And there's some nutbread in the cabinet, cut a few slices. You're all much too skinny!"

Bow nodded and got to work.

At the mention of food, Teela realized her last meal had been a few breakfast pastries with Queen Marlena. Her stomach rumbled.

"This spell is Shadow Weaver's work," Madame informed Teela. She thumped the book down onto the table and waved her hands over it. Magic twinkled and sparkled. The cover flipped open and the pages began turning themselves. "I'd recognize that awful stuff anywhere!"

Shadow Weaver again. Teela looked at the others in the kitchen. "Who _is_ that?"

"The Horde's sorceress," Kowl said. "Quite an evil one, too."

"The worst!" Madame added emphatically.

Huh. The pieces still didn't make any sense, but at least Teela had more of them. She went looking for another: "The... Force Captain?... acted like Shadow Weaver was missing. She wanted to know what I'd done with her."

In the midst of pouring, Bow looked up so quickly that he spilled hot water from the kettle onto his arm instead. He didn't quite bite back the resultant yelp.

Kowl hooted and passed him a cloth. "Careful, Bow, or our new friend will see through the façade."

Bow cut him a dark look, but his next words were to Teela. "Force Captain Adora said that? _Did_ you do something to Weaver?"

"No," Teela said, frowning. She thought back over her fortress encounter with Force Captain Adora (and wow, that simpering, syrupy name was _not_ a good match for the soldier) and the woman with the red mask. "I mean, not that I know of. I've never heard of her."

"Well, you certainly could have," Madame said absently, peering at her spellbook, whose pages were still obediently flipping themselves. "You've got more than - Aha!" she crowed, jabbing her finger onto the page and making it freeze in place. "That's it, that's the one! Hold out your arms, deary."

Teela held out her arms. Madame waggled her fingers over the manacles, chanting, " _Razzle dazzle, miggle mee, horrid handcuffs, set her free!_ "

Not much of a spell. But the manacles glowed – angrily, it seemed to Teela – and then split neatly down their middles, clunking to the tabletop as ordinary pieces of metal.

Madame cackled and clapped her hands together. "Haven't lost my touch!"

"Well done indeed," Kowl said. He crouched beside the manacles and poked at one experimentally with a clawed, stubby finger.

Teela, meanwhile, was rubbing the chafed skin on her forearms. "Thank you, Madame," she said sincerely.

"Oh, it was nothing," Madame said, waving her thanks away – but the pleased smile stretching her face's web of wrinkles said otherwise.

Bow leaned across them and set out a plate of sliced bread and three cups of tea, one of them Kowl-sized, all of them still gently steaming. "We'll have to get going soon, I'm afraid."

Madame tsked in disappointment. "I wish you wouldn't – it's just been the two of us here. So lonely sometimes! But of course you'll have to take Teela to the camp."

Bow nodded, sipping at his own cup of tea. "Before we leave, I wanted to ask about those enchanted arrows," he said, and Teela tuned out the conversation in favor of eating the bread, drinking her tea (surprisingly good), and thinking about her next move.

She could go to the camp, whatever and wherever that was. Bow and Kowl had so far proven themselves friendly; presumably their camp would be too.

Or she could ask to be escorted out of the Woods. Major downside to that idea: Force Captain Adora and her bat-wing buddies would probably be waiting to pounce as soon as Teela was clear of the protective magic.

No, the best choice was also the most obvious one. She'd go with Bow and Kowl, get oriented, figure out a plan for getting home.

Bow and Madame finished discussing the arrows, everyone finished their tea, and they managed to get out of the house without more than two or three rounds of hugs, noisy cheek-kissings, and admonishments to take more food.

Teela was happy to oblige. She ate another slice of bread and some kind of fruit as the three of them collected Arrow and started down another path.

"Good-bye, dearies!" Madame called after them, waving from her doorstep.

The sun was setting, adding more color to the rainbow riot of the forest, and Teela pretended she was so caught up in admiring the scenery that she didn't notice the tiny eyes and mysterious whispers dogging their trail.

"Almost there," Bow said cheerfully. He was whistling again.

"Don't be worried," Kowl told Teela, having resumed his perch on Arrow's saddle. "I assure you, everyone is perfectly friendly."

She had to laugh. "I think I'll be okay. How many people is 'everyone'?"

"Not as many as we'd like," Kowl said. "But a rather respectable number, all things considered."

Which didn't answer her question at all. Oh well. At this point, she was tired of trying to puzzle through unknowns. She was ready to deal with something straightforward. Like a fistfight. Or sleep.

The narrow trail they were following twisted through a cluster of close-growing, smaller trees, and then suddenly opened up into an immense clearing.

"Here we are, milady," Bow said. He did one of those courtly flourishes. "The Great Rebellion!"

 _Great_ was not the word Teela would have used.

Tents and small huts dotted the clearing, arranged haphazardly; some bunching around cooking fires, some standing separate. Platforms dangled from the gigantic trees that ringed the clearing, many of which had stairs and walkways linking them.

The whole thing looked… shoddy. Amateur. Painfully amateur.

And these were the people she was trusting to get her home.

"Um. Wow," Teela said, her heart sinking.

Bow grinned, oblivious to her dismay. "Isn't it magnificent? We built it ourselves, and in only two years!"

A group of children playing a ball game ran past them, with shouts of "Hi Bow!" and "Who's that?" and " _I'm_ gonna tell the princess!"

The princess? There was a princess here? Teela looked around skeptically. None of the huts or tents seemed to be up to princessy standards. At least royalty would be familiar territory.

"As you'll see," Kowl said to Teela, "nothing here remains secret for long."

"There's… a lot of kids," she said, still looking around. You usually didn't see those in the headquarters of a rebellion. But fully a third of the camp's population seemed to be younger than she was.

The sinking feeling intensified.

Before Bow could further extol the virtues of the camp, the pack of children came flooding back in their direction, this time accompanied by two older girls.

One of the girls was carrying a spear and had a battered helmet that kept sliding down over her eyes. The other girl was unarmed and dressed entirely in shades of purple, which looked striking against her brown skin. What Teela noticed most was her hair, however: a positive riot of springy curls, reaching halfway down her back, and every bit as purple as her clothes.

The purple girl met Teela's eyes, frowned, and drew herself straighter. "Bow!" she said in an imperious tone, striding toward them. Her cloud of hair bounced magnificently with every step. "Who is _this_? I told you not to bring strangers to the camp!"

Bow gestured grandly at the Woods, obviously playing to the audience gathering behind the purple girl. "She's no stranger! She was being hunted down by the Horde."

The purple girl looked singularly unconvinced. Smart. She stopped a mere foot in front of Teela, her hands on her hips and her jaw set in challenge. It had carried a threat when Force Captain Blondie had done the same, but it was a ludicrous posture from someone who barely came to Teela's collarbone, and, from close range, was maybe thirteen years old and could use a few good meals.

"Identify yourself, stranger," she commanded.

Wait, was this kid _in charge_? Teela looked around. The rest of the camp was hanging back in a ragged circle, watching and listening respectfully.

"Teela, Captain of the Royal Guard of Eternia," she said, wary. "And you are…?"

The girl was affronted. Her eyes were purple, too, and they glowed when she narrowed them. "I am Her Highness, Princess Glimmer of the Kingdom of Brightmoon. _And_ I'm the leader of the Great Rebellion."

Oh. So she _was_ in charge.

"You should have seen her, milady," Bow said to the princess, inserting himself into the conversation again. He placed a hand on Teela's shoulder, then turned to include the gathered crowd. "She escaped the Fright Zone – alone! With my own eyes, I saw her fearlessly scale the cliffs of the Crimson Waste, braving fire from a Force Squad! Even after they took her prisoner, her hands shackled, she valiantly fought against them all – including Captain Adora herself!"

There were a great many gasps and murmurs in the crowd. Apparently Blondie had a reputation… and now Teela did, too.

She looked at Bow with new respect. Not a whole lot, mind. But some.

Glimmer wasn't buying it. She crossed her arms over her chest. "That's not proof, Bow. She could still be a Horde spy."

"Madame likes her," he said. It was almost a retort – something a brother would say to a sister, rather than an archer to his princess. Teela glanced between them, trying to figure out the exact relationship.

Glimmer frowned some more.

"She's very nice," Kowl put in, as if Teela wasn't standing two feet away. "And Captain Adora thinks she's done away with Shadow Weaver."

More murmurs. Glimmer, startled, looked at Teela again.

"I don't even know who that is," Teela said quickly. Best to be honest.

Glimmer's forehead puckered, and she bit her thumbnail before remembering her audience and straightening up into a regal pose again. It was a very Adam sort of move. "Well, I suppose for tonight you can stay here," she said, trying to sound authoritative. Her eyes darted around the crowd and she added, hastily, "Um – under guard, of course."

"Of course," Teela said, trying not to smile.

"In the morning I shall make a final decision about you, Captain Teela," Glimmer said, royally haughty, eyes glowing again, and Teela knew her smile hadn't been as hidden as she'd hoped.

"Most wise, Your Highness," Bow said, sweeping out his cloak and bending deeply from the waist. "As usual."

Glimmer wrinkled her nose. "Just find her a tent, Bow." She turned to the girl beside her. "You'll stand guard."

"Yes milady," the girl said immediately, bobbing. Her helmet nearly fell off, and she almost dropped her spear as well.

Glimmer huffed, turned on her heel, and stormed away, taking most of the audience with her.

Mercifully, on the walk to the promised tent, Bow turned his attention to the so-called guard, who blushed and stammered and overall provided much better sport than Teela.

"Good night, milady," Bow said when they reached the tent. He moved to take Teela's hand, probably to kiss it, but she hadn't spent all those years dodging court boys for nothing.

"Good night," she said, waving at him with one hand and covering a yawn with the other. And on that small victory, she ducked inside the tent.

There wasn't much to it: a cot, a small wooden chest, and a bowl she guessed served as a washbasin. The cot was strictly utilitarian, the kind of thing an army would use in the field, and as such consisted only of a rectangle of canvas (stained) on a wood frame (rickety), a thin blanket (moth-eaten), and a flattened, misshapen lump that might have been a pillow, once upon a time (also stained).

 _Home sweet home_ , she thought, sardonically, but she couldn't deny that the cot – or rather, the promise of sleep – was an overwhelming temptation.

She had a lot to think about. A lot to plan, a lot to figure out. But she couldn't do any of it if she was exhausted. Her father had always cautioned against that… even if he rarely took his own advice.

Teela removed her boots, tucked her staff under the pillow, and let herself collapse beneath the blanket. It smelled like horses. She didn't care.

She'd argued with her father. With Adam. By now He-Man must have told all of the Masters what had happened to her, but they had no way to know where she was or even if she was still alive.

She wished she had apologized.

 _But I'll make it back_ , she thought, fuzzy but certain, as she slipped over the edge into unconsciousness. _I have to._


	7. dawn

**Seven: dawn**

.

.

.

Teela came awake all in a instant.

She'd been dreaming, and echoes of it swirled around her mind even as she took in the shadowed tent above her head, the canvas cot beneath her spine, the scratchy fibers of the blanket she was clutching to her body.

 _Whew! What a dream_ , she thought, releasing her death grip on the blanket to drape one arm over her eyes. She blew out a heavy breath. It had seemed completely real, despite being rife with crazy dream-logic.

Like a gleaming white-and-gold castle that she _knew_ was Grayskull, even though it was set among verdant fields, no abyss in sight.

Or a winged woman that she _knew_ was the Sorceress, even though she looked nothing like the Sorceress… which Teela also somehow knew, despite never having actually laid eyes on the woman.

Or a man that she _knew_ was He-Man, even though he was taller, older, and wearing a ragged fur-trimmed cloak.

Not to mention a set of warriors, all of different races, who were as familiar as the Eternos palace, even though Teela had never seen them before.

In the dream Teela had been standing on the castle's drawbridge, near the warriors but unseen by them. There had been stormclouds building on the far horizon, and the scent of rain was heavy. The man who was and wasn't He-Man had crouched to lift the woman who was and wasn't the Sorceress; she had fallen to her knees some time before, one hand reaching out to the clouds.

The man had not set the woman on her feet again, but had held her close, cradling her like a child. She'd looked almost comically tiny in his massive arms.

"Veena," he'd said, in a voice like the rumble of thunder; but there was only tenderness in his words. "Do not despair, my love. All will be well. This I promise."

The warriors had nodded to one another, plainly troubled, but also satisfied by this vow. But the woman – Veena – had looked away to the horizon, her face set into a mask of grief.

Teela had found herself stepping forward without intending to, drawn like a magnet by that sorrow. As she'd walked, the warriors had melted away into nothing, fading as fast as the landscape. Even the huge man had disappeared, leaving only Veena, standing alone in a great sea of gray, drifting fog.

"Oh, my husband," Veena had said softly to the misty air. She'd clasped her arms across her chest, bent over some invisible wound; her wings had drawn in, too, folding into her quiet misery. "If only you were right."

"I'm… I'm sorry," Teela had told Veena.

Veena had turned. Her eyes had met Teela's, and she'd raised one hand and made a sharp gesture, and suddenly Teela had been standing not in an endless mist, but in Adam's bedroom at the palace.

Dream logic. Go figure.

At least the Adam part made sense – she'd been thinking about him before she fell asleep. Still, she wasn't sure why or how she'd conjured up such a _specific_ scene.

Cringer napping on the floor beside the bed. Well, that was totally normal. Adam in his formal court clothes. What she'd last seen him wearing, okay. Adam dropping onto his bed with a groan, hands over his face, saying, "How'm I going to fix things with Teela, Cringe?" – that could have just been wish fulfillment. He _did_ owe her.

But then...

"I wish I could just _tell_ her," Adam had said, still talking to Cringer. "I know, I know, I can't. But it would make everything so much _easier_!"

Cringer had leapt onto the bed beside Adam, mewing in concern.

Adam had rubbed Cringer's head, scratching at the fur behind his ears. "You should've heard her at the party tonight. Pretty sure she's starting to hate me, buddy. The worst of it is, I can't blame her."

Cringer had mewled again, this time sympathetically. Then he'd licked the side of Adam's face, making the prince laugh.

"Yeah, you'll always be my friend, I know."

Pleased, Cringer had given Adam one more slurp before he curled himself into an improbably tight ball of lanky tiger, tucked his tail in, and closed his eyes.

Adam had scrubbed at the slobber on his cheek for a minute, then risen from the bed and gone over to the nearest window. He'd rested his arms on the sill and his chin on his arms, looking out at the moonlit night. His reflection had looked back.

"Maybe," he'd said slowly, "maybe we should go see the Sorceress tomorrow morning anyway. Maybe Teela's a special case, right?"

No answer from Cringer aside from a light snorffling sound.

"Yeah," Adam had said to the window. Quietly, that time, thoughtfully, as if he'd only been talking to himself. "Maybe."

He'd sighed, and his reflection had sighed, too. Then the glass had seemed to shiver, and it was no longer Adam looking back, but the blonde Horde soldier.

Adora.

And at that point, Teela had jolted awake.

Teela made a face now, remembering. Seeing Force Captain Adora superimposed over Adam like that was just… _wrong_. And what did it say about her, that her subconscious was equating her best friend with her newest enemy?

She pushed the blanket aside, ready to quit thinking about bizarre dreams and start figuring out what she was going to do next. Breakfast sounded good. It was too much to hope that the Rebellion camp included anything more than a basic latrine, but that was high on her list as well.

And after that…

"One thing at a time," she told herself, swinging her feet to the floor and wincing at the sore, stiff muscles the action revealed. "And one of those things should be stretching. _Ugh_."

Teela looked around the floor for her boots – and froze. In the deepest shadows of her tent, three sets of tiny eyes glowed.

Purple, yellow, green.

High-pitched whispers and hushed giggles filled the air.

Teela held her breath, remembering the sensation of being watched in the forest. It was much worse inside a tent. What had Kowl and Madame called them? Twig something.

The glowing eyes disappeared, but the whispers continued.

 _They're friendly, remember?_ she told herself. _Friendly forest spirit creature… things_.

She swallowed and gave an uncertain little wave in the direction she'd last seen the eyes. "Um… good morning, everyone."

A miniature laugh rang out, like the peal of the world's smallest bell, and the whispering vanished.

Teela waited for another minute, but there was no further sign of the… the Twiggets, that was it. She found her boots, shoved them on, and raked a quick hand through her hair to get out the worst of the tangles before she left the tent.

She stepped out into the soft owl-light of predawn. The camp was still mostly asleep, and the forest around it was peaceful. Overhead, stars glittered in the fading darkness.

None of the constellations were familiar.

And instead of the friendly, comfortable moons that filled the sky at home, here there was only one, a huge sharp disc that glowed almost painfully bright.

It was pink, of course.

Teela quickly dropped her attention earthward. The "guard" that had been posted outside her tent was gone. In the girl's place was a young man in a hooded brown cloak, grinning at her.

"Good morning, milady," he said grandly, with a ridiculous courtly flourish.

"Hi, Bow," Teela said, ungrandly.

"Glimmer wants to see you right away," Bow said as he straightened. "That is, as soon as she wakes up."

Teela snorted. It figured.

He gestured self-importantly at the miserable huddle of tents and went on, "In the meantime, my most gracious lady, I am utterly at your service."

She crossed her arms over her chest, one eyebrow lifted. "So I'm not a Horde spy?"

" _I_ never thought you were," Bow retorted, dropping the pose of court gallant in favor of an ordinary young soldier. "Come on. I'll show you where we keep the porridge."

Teela's stomach rumbled with approval of that plan. She followed without further comment. By the time she was seated on a log near the cooking fire, a bowl of hot food in hand, the Rebels were beginning to stir. Their princess… not so much.

That was okay. Teela was used to royalty sleeping in. Besides, she wasn't going to begrudge the chance to get a better look at the layout of the camp or a feel for the people of the Great Rebellion.

As she'd noticed yesterday, there were a lot of kids. There were also a lot of women, which she guessed made sense. Surprisingly for a resistance movement, there weren't very many men of fighting age – most were either too old or too young.

So who was doing the fighting?

Probably not the two young women sitting on the next log over, who were both trying to convince small children to eat some porridge.

One of them caught Teela looking, and gave her a weary smile before returning her attention to the toddler making a mess of his breakfast and her skirts.

"Kowl's not a fan of porridge?" Teela asked Bow, having finally noticed the creature's absence.

Bow laughed. "Kowl's not a fan of mornings. You can't fault him for it – his kind are usually nocturnal. Just another reason he's so grouchy, I guess."

Before Teela could ask any further questions, a girl about nine or ten years old rushed up to Bow. "The princess is awake," she announced importantly, wiping at her runny nose with one hand. "She says bring the new lady."

Message delivered, the girl darted off again.

The woman with the messy toddler _tsk_ ed in disapproval – but not, Teela quickly realized, for the princess' sloth: "With only a few hours of sleep! Poor girl."

"She'll make herself sick," the other woman agreed. "How late was she up this time?"

"Past midnight, at least," the first woman said. She joggled the toddler on her lap. "This one woke me, and I saw her light glowing."

The other woman shook her head, making some clucking noises of her own. "If only the queen was here."

"If only the Horde wasn't," Bow said curtly, rising from his seat. The women looked a trifle taken aback. "Come on, Lady Teela."

Teela laid her empty bowl on the log and followed.

Princess Glimmer, being royalty, evidently rated more prestigious accommodations than a patched and leaky old tent. Bow led Teela to one of the huts. It looked sturdier than most, but she hoped the Whispering Woods' enchantment extended to protection from strong winds.

Someone had painted what must be the royal crest on the door: a large pink disk framed by wings.

At least Teela assumed they were wings. The painter hadn't been very good.

Bow rapped on the door; a formality only, it seemed, because he pushed it open without waiting for a response.

"Lady Teela, as you commanded, Your Highness," he said, ushering Teela inside ahead of him.

Inside, a couple of lamps cast flickering yellow light over everything. The furniture was similar to that in Teela's tent, albeit more substantial: bed, basin, trunk, chair, even a mirror hanging on one wall. Most of the hut had been given over to a large, map-covered table. The Great Rebellion's war room, it seemed.

Her Highness was sitting in a chair in front of the map table, yawning into a steaming cup of tea. Her riotous hair had been gathered into two large, loose plaits, both of which were falling apart, leaving curls poking out at random; she had a purple dressing-gown pulled on over what appeared to be the same outfit she'd been wearing yesterday. The overall effect made her look even younger than before.

"Great," Glimmer said, squinting at them. "What's for breakfast today?"

"Porridge," Bow told her.

Her nose wrinkled, but she didn't say anything more about breakfast. Instead she straightened her spine and gestured at a pair of wooden stools standing nearby, belatedly putting some royalty into her demeanor. "Have a seat, Captain Teela. You too, Bow."

Teela sat before Bow could do anything stupid, like offer to assist her.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I've requested your presence," Glimmer said to her.

Teela was not wondering. Either Glimmer had decided to make her an official prisoner, or she'd had someone looking into Teela's story and determined it all checked out.

"Your Highness," was all she said. Hey, if the kid wanted to play at being regal, she'd go along with it.

"You're not a Horde spy," Glimmer said.

Teela resisted rolling her eyes, but barely. "What changed your mind?"

"The Rebellion has its sources," Glimmer said, obviously trying to sound aloof and mysterious. Trying. Sleep-rumpled and yawning, she didn't quite pull it off.

" _We_ have spies in the Horde," Bow confided with a wide, delighted grin.

Glimmer was not delighted. " _Bow_!"

"What? You said she was okay."

"That doesn't mean you can tell her _everything_!" Glimmer made a shooing gesture at the hut's door. "Ugh, just – just go away."

Bow looked as if he wanted to protest further, but he didn't. "Yes, Your Highness," he said, rising, then turned to Teela. "Milady."

He did one of those ridiculous flourishes on the way out.

"He's not very good with secrets," Teela observed. _No one has ever accused Bow of subtlety_ , Kowl had said the day before. And yet he was obviously highly placed in a secretive, subtle Rebellion.

Desperation. Had to be.

Glimmer sighed; it turned into a yawn. She took a drink of tea, then said, "Mother says Bow always sees the best in everyone, even when he shouldn't. He even sticks up for Captain Adora, can you believe _that_?"

Teela's eyebrow went up despite herself. "Force Captain Adora."

"He says she saved his life when the Horde seized Castle Brightmoon a few years ago." Glimmer shrugged, a fond half-grin quirking her mouth. "But he says a lot of stuff."

Teela snorted. "Yeah, no kidding."

Glimmer's half-grin faded into a serious expression. She set her drink on top of the map table and laced her fingers together in her lap. "So. You're a Royal Guard. And a good fighter, it sounds like. But I've never heard of Eternia. Where is it? How did you get here?"

"I'm not sure how I got here," Teela admitted. "And… I'm not sure where Eternia is. I think this is a different planet."

It hurt to say it out loud. She took a breath around the sudden queasiness in her stomach. Probably just the porridge.

"Oh," Glimmer said. Her forehead creased, but then she rallied again. "Okay. Tell me about your duties as a Royal Guard."

Teela did, sketching out not only her job with the Guard but also the Skeletor situation, He-Man, and her part in the Masters. She finished with a description of Evil-Lyn's portal spell and escaping from the fortress.

Glimmer was a great audience. She stared wide-eyed the entire time, and gasped at all the right places. "By the First Ones," the girl breathed when Teela was done. "That's… I don't know. How are you going to get home?"

What little hope Teela had plummeted straight to the bottom of her boots. "I thought the Rebellion might help with that, Your Highness."

The forehead crease returned, this time with a chewed thumbnail. "I'm not very good with magic. Mother was starting to teach me before she, um – before the Horde took her. Mostly I can do little things, with light. Um, and some illusions. They're never very convincing. But I _can_ teleport twenty whole yards!"

Teela nodded vaguely at the magic repertoire, then focused on the most critical piece of information. "The Horde. That's Captain Adora's goon squad, right?"

"Well, yeah, but it's more than that. The Horde is – it's an army. It's unstoppable. They've taken over everything." Glimmer glanced at the map table. "We're safe here only until Shadow Weaver finds a way around the Woods' magic."

"So Shadow Weaver's in charge," Teela said. Okay. It made sense that Blondie and friends would be flipping out if their leader had inexplicably disappeared.

But Glimmer shook her head emphatically. "She's just the second-in-command. Their real leader is stuck in another dimension or something. He tells Weaver what to do and she makes sure it gets done."

Elders! This was as bad as trying to coax an after-action report out of Ram Man. "And _he_ is…?"

"I don't like to say his name," the princess said, hushed. "Mother says that's only superstition, but – I don't like it. Everything terrible that's happened on Etheria, since before I was born – it's all his fault. He's _evil_."

Teela waited.

After a long moment, Glimmer leaned forward and whispered, "Hordak."


	8. history lessons

**Eight: history lessons**

 **.**

 **.**

 **.**

Hordak.

Teela knew that name. It took a moment for her to figure out why, and then it all came flooding back.

"Hordak was on Eternia," she told Glimmer. "A _very_ long time ago. He created a spell that almost split the planet in half – it's a long story. I thought he was dead."

He-Man had never mentioned the part about Hordak being trapped in another dimension. Maybe he didn't know.

But more importantly, this was starting to make sense, _finally_. She hadn't been whisked away to Etheria at random. Her abduction was all part of a plot. A plot to… what?

Teela had a feeling she knew exactly what.

It was a bad feeling.

"Could Weaver rescue Hordak from this other dimension? If she was working with another sorcerer, like Evil-Lyn?" Teela asked.

Glimmer stared at her for a long moment, face going pale, then abruptly jumped to her feet and banged the door open. "Bow!" she called.

Bow had obviously been lurking outside, because he was in the doorway before Glimmer finished saying his name. "Your Highness?"

"You need to hear this," she said. "And Kowl. And – is Madame here?"

One of Bow's eyebrows quirked up, and he gestured over his shoulder. "You didn't hear her crash-landing a few minutes ago? She took out three tents."

"Go get her," Glimmer ordered, then added, wrinkling her nose, "Make sure she leaves that broom outside. It's creepy."

Bow saluted and was off in a billow of brown cloak. Glimmer didn't return to her chair, but paced up and down the small hut. After a few seconds she seemed to realize she was still half-dressed, because she shucked the robe and retrieved a hairbrush from the trunk.

"I need to get back to Eternia right now," Teela said.

"Um, yeah," Glimmer said, undoing what was left of her plaits before pulling the brush through her hair with quick, hard strokes. "Absolutely. Obviously. You have to warn everyone. But I don't – maybe Madame knows a way to get you there?"

Doubtful.

Glimmer hadn't quite finished with her hair before the door flew open again, this time bearing a whirlwind of daffy old witch, who of course had to greet both the princess and Teela with a great deal of affection and effusion.

Bow returned with Kowl around the same time Madame finished hugging and kissing everyone. Kowl was rubbing his large yellow eyes, his fur sticking up in all sorts of undignified ways, and his expression was decidedly grumpy – but he was awake. He fluttered over to the map table and plumped himself down next to Glimmer's abandoned tea, then began preening.

"All right," Bow said, shutting the rickety door behind him. "What's going on?"

Teela glanced at Glimmer, who nodded at her. Instead of answering Bow's question directly, she turned to Madame. "Is it possible that I switched places with Weaver? She went to Eternia, and I came here?"

"Oh deary my, yes," the witch said. She hopped up on the stool by the map table and perched there, feet swinging jauntily in their curlicue boots. Kowl edged out of her reach. "A translocation spell is _much_ easier than opening a real portal. The tricky part would be finding someone with equal magic – it has to balance, you see."

"But… I don't have any magic," Teela said, frowning. It seemed like a pretty obvious point, and one that people, bafflingly, kept getting wrong.

Madame gave a merry cackle. "That's just what Broom thought you'd say!"

"Madame," Glimmer cut in, "is there a way to get Teela home?"

Madame Razz blinked at her. "Eh? Doesn't she live here? No, no, wait, that's the other one. Silly me!"

Glimmer and Bow exchanged a look, and then Bow said, "The queen would probably know, Your Highness."

"Oh!" Madame exclaimed, clapping her hands together like a happy child. "Queen Angella! I haven't seen her in _ages_. How is she?"

Glimmer looked away, her face pained.

"The queen was captured," Bow said, not unkindly.

"Oh," Madame said. Her expression became chagrined. "Ohhh, dear. Yes, that's right."

"By the Horde?" Teela asked, remembering what Glimmer had said about learning magic. Everyone nodded. "Is she… have they imprisoned her?"

Glimmer and Bow exchanged a glance, and then he said, "It's a long story."

"Especially when _you_ tell it," Kowl added.

Bow cut him a dark look, which Kowl pretended to miss, being too preoccupied with preening his fur.

"Etheria isn't like your Eternia, milady," Bow said to Teela, though still glaring at Kowl. "There was never a grand alliance of kingdoms and people here."

Teela folded her arms over her chest, thinking about the rickety walls of the hut. "You were eavesdropping." It wasn't a question.

"Only so that I might better protect my princess," he said, too smooth to be serious - something further proved when he grinned at Teela. "And to hear the sweet music of your voice, of course."

Kowl made a loud, wet retching noise. "Do pardon me," he said when all eyes swiveled towards him. He cleared his throat ostentatiously. "Something was stuck in my throat."

"Gosh, are you all right?" Teela asked, reaching over to pat the creature on the back. Her concern was every bit as fake as Kowl's choking episode, but she had to show her gratitude somehow. She'd been about to make the same noise.

"As I was saying," Bow said, a bit more loudly than necessary, "we were always a patchwork of small kingdoms. Everyone kept to themselves. Oh, there was trading, and sometimes a skirmish over borders, or a pirate raid on the coasts, but…" He shrugged. "Nothing that required a standing army. So when the Horde appeared – about sixteen, seventeen years ago – no one was equipped to fight them. No one was even _interested_ in fighting them. They were in Mystacor, and what did Brightmoon care about Mystacor?"

"We should have," Glimmer said. She looked at Teela, guilt drawing down the lines of her mouth, fingers twisting in a long coil of her hair. "The Horde went to the Crimson Wastes next, and the insect tribes… they aren't… they aren't there anymore."

Brightmoon had done nothing while the kingdoms around them were swallowed up. Because they didn't care about their neighbors. Because they didn't have a Council of Elders or a He-Man or a Sorceress or even a King Randor to look out for the whole planet.

"So by the time the Horde got to your doorstep," Teela said, drawing the obvious conclusion, "it was already too late."

Everyone nodded.

"King Micah disappeared in battle four years ago, Castle Brightmoon fell two years ago, and Queen Angella was captured six months ago," Bow went on, ticking points off on his fingers. "At first we thought the Horde would brainwash her, or lock her in the Fright Zone, but they had… other plans."

"They gave her to the harpy queen," Kowl said, subdued. "Hunga."

"That horrible creature!" Madame cried indignantly.

"The harpy queen," Teela repeated, earning more nods. Well, that promised _loads_ of fun.

"The harpies are the traditional enemies of Queen Angella's people," Bow said.

"They're just jealous that their stupid wings are so ugly, and Mother's are so beautiful," Glimmer said, with all the righteous indignance of a proud daughter.

Bow gave the princess an encouraging grin, then returned to Teela. "Our sources in the Horde say the harpies agreed to ally with Shadow Weaver in exchange for Her Majesty."

Harpies with Horde backup. Even more fun. "Is Queen Angella still there?"

"As far as we know," Glimmer said. She continued twisting her hair, but her chin came up and she said defiantly, "Mother is strong. She's all right. I know she is."

When you were drowning, you grabbed for anything within reach. Teela took this dubious intelligence and clung to it with her whole being. "And you know where the harpies are holding her?"

"Oh, yes, of course," Madame said, adjusting her position on the stool. She made it sound like they were discussing a friend's new house. "In the caves of Talon Mountain. That's where all the harpies live."

The first strokes of a plan began to paint themselves across Teela's mind. "And Queen Angella can get me home?"

Glimmer hesitated for a moment, then nodded firmly. "If anyone on Etheria can help you, it's Mother."

Teela took a deep breath. "Okay," she said, crossing to the map table. "Then let's go get her."


	9. recon

**Nine: recon**

 **.**

 **.**

 **.**

Talon Mountain was aptly named.

It jutted out of the landscape south of the Whispering Woods, the tallest, grayest, most jagged peak in a range of gray, jagged peaks, scraping up against the sky like giant claws. The Woods stopped well short of the harpy nest. Even the non-magical forest seemed to want nothing to do with it, judging by the way the green trees abruptly gave way to a lifeless terrain of rocks and deadfall.

The weather was likewise unhappy with the area. The sunny skies had been replaced with low-hanging stormclouds, though so far no rain was falling.

"Cheery," Teela said, surveying the mountain from the concealing shelter of the normal forest and the brown cloaks they were all wearing.

"Aye, Captain. Lovely as a harpy's face," one of the Rebels said, sneering it. A low chuckle ran through the other Rebels – four of them here, six of them waiting back at the camp. Ten women in all. They'd been hand-picked, but the selection process had unearthed a very large disadvantage.

Namely: the Great Rebellion had no actual soldiers.

"None of them," Teela had said, her eyebrows steadily climbing up her forehead as she'd processed this news. " _No one_ in this camp has any military experience whatsoever. Not a single person."

"Aside from myself, naturally," Bow had said, winking at her.

On his shoulder, Kowl had hooted. " _One_ fight. Which you had to be rescued from, as I recall!"

"Bow was apprenticing with the Queen's Own Archers when the castle fell. He's been training as many people as he can," Glimmer had explained, while Bow had glared daggers (or was that arrows?) at his friend. "But he doesn't really know any other weapons."

So Teela's plan to rescue Queen Angella from the harpies of Talon Mountain had to be easy and straightforward enough for raw recruits, and consist solely of archery.

Bow's training regimen did, at least, include making raids on Horde supply caravans and other targets of opportunity. Teela had had him select the ten Rebels least likely to panic under fire. One of them, Mally, turned out to be the woman with the sticky toddler from breakfast.

Watching Mally kiss her small son, then hand him off to her friend before joining the rest of the impromptu squadron on the trail… that had put an uncomfortable sting into Teela's heart.

As they'd marched, Teela had told herself it was ridiculous. Many of the men in the Royal Guard, particularly the older ones, were fathers. It never bothered her to send _them_ off into danger.

Mothers were her weak spot, she supposed.

She tried not to feel bitter about it.

Teela's small force also included Madame Razz, Glimmer, and Bow. With all of the usual Rebellion leaders away, the princess had ordered Kowl to stay behind and run things at the Rebel camp.

Kowl had not complained. Teela was choosing to ignore the implications of that.

"Where are the harpies right now?" Teela asked, scanning the desolate landscape.

"They nest in that cavern, Lady Teela," Bow said, coming to stand beside her so he could point it out. She was halfway expecting him to try to put his other hand on her shoulder, or otherwise snuggle up. But he didn't.

Good; a one-handed archer wouldn't be very useful in the coming fight.

The cavern entrance was more or less at ground level, and more or less in the center of the mountain. As she tried to make a rough estimate of dimensions, there was movement inside. Teela squinted. Too far to see.

"Anyone have a –" she began, only to stop herself when Bow held out a spyglass. A plain, old-fashioned spyglass. Couple of lenses in a brass tube.

Teela took the spyglass and turned it over in her hands. For a moment she was a small girl, playing pretend in the forest with Adam – what had they been? Explorers? No, pirates – and the memory dug tiny, deadly thorns into her heart while at the same time bringing a truth into focus.

Bows and arrows. Horses. Paper maps. A spyglass.

No blasters. No sky sleds. No communicators.

"You don't have much technology," she said to the Rebels. "At all. Do you?"

Heads shook.

"The Horde does," one of the women said.

"They don't share," another added, wry, to another round of chuckling.

Mally said, "We steal what we can from their supply lines. But most of it is in the Fright Zone, and we don't go there."

"Another difference between Eternia and Etheria, milady," Bow said. He sounded a little defensive.

Another disadvantage, in other words.

Teela looked at the spyglass again, then shrugged and lifted it to her eye. With a few minor adjustments, the central cavern leapt out in crisp detail.

Well, the exterior of the cavern, anyway. The interior was mostly shadows-on-shadows. Still, Teela could make out a massive pillar (stalagmite, rather) in the middle of the cavern; it abruptly sheared off about fifty yards up from the floor, topped with a spiky, chair-ish mass.

Three guesses where Queen Hunga kept her throne.

A few shadows moved in lazy swoops across the cavern. Not nearly as many, or as often, as might be expected from a cavern that size.

"They're not very active," Teela said, continuing to scan the cavern with the spyglass. She needed a better idea of where Queen Angella might be held. It would be even better if she knew _how_ she was being held. Rescuing someone from a locked and barred cell was completely different than rescuing someone chained to a wall.

Teela should know. She was an expert on being rescued.

Mally said, "They're sleeping, probably."

Nods all around. "Aye, they avoid the light, Captain."

Teela nodded too. That had been covered during the trek to Talon Mountain - a lecture short on tactical details but long on ballads sung by Bow.

Kowl had been right. As a singer, Bow made a great archer.

Regardless, the most pertinent points of Harpy 101 had been: harpies were slow-witted and slow-moving but incredibly strong; they were nocturnal; and Queen Hunga had some kind of magic scepter whose blasts should be avoided at all costs.

As her eyes continued to adjust to the darkness inside the cavern, Teela picked out more details. It looked like there were smaller caves or tunnels that led in and out of the main cavern - something to watch out for when they attacked.

She went back to the throne on its huge pillar, wishing for a bit more light. _If I was an evil queen_ , she thought, _with a hated enemy as my prisoner, I'd keep them close for maximum gloating_.

Skeletor would do it. Totally.

But would Hunga? If only Teela could _see_...

The clouds broke for just a moment, and sunlight stabbed into the ground outside the cavern. At the foot of the throne, something moved - something with large, pale wings that reflected the brief sunlight.

 _Ha! Gotcha._

"I have to get closer," Teela said, lowering the spyglass and tucking it under her cloak. She faced the four Rebels. "I'll need a second with me, to watch my back. Volunteers?"

"I will," Mally said, swift and sure. Perfect. The Rebel woman had a good head on her shoulders.

Bow looked disappointed, but said gamely, "We'll provide cover from here, should you need it, milady."

This "lady" nonsense needed to stop. Technically, as the daughter of the king's Man-At-Arms, she could use the courtesy title _Lady Teela_. But she didn't, because she'd busted her hump to get her _actual_ title. She narrowed her eyes at Bow and said, "It's Captain Teela, or just Teela. I'm not a lady."

A ragged chorus of "Yes, Captain" and "Aye ma'am" echoed back.

"Whatever you wish," Bow said, flourishing. He might've added a "my lady" to that, but luckily for his teeth and her plan, Teela was already on the move and could plausibly deny hearing it.

She and Mally broke from the cover of the trees and made their way - cautiously, carefully, with a lot of ducking and hiding - across the expanse of tumbled boulders and dead wood, until they were approximately twenty yards from the cavern entrance.

Teela found a good position, lying on her stomach between two boulders and under an old log, its wood gone silver-gray with age. In the shadow of the log, the lens of the spyglass was less likely to give them away.

No need to alert the bad guys that they were up to something.

Mally moved a little ways off, pressed close to a boulder, eyes also glued on the cavern. "All clear, Captain."

Teela grunted acknowledgement and brought the spyglass into focus, finding the throne and the figure at its base once again. From this position, the angle wasn't as good, but she could see that it was a woman, and the wings were feathery, not the more batlike harpy kind.

The wings reminded Teela of Veena for some reason, even though Veena had white feathers and this woman's were pink. Then she realized it was the way that the wings attached: at the small of the back, rather than at the shoulders.

The woman had golden-brown hair and Glimmer's dark skin, and her pink-and-rose clothes were filthy but had once been good quality. She stood and paced around the stalagmite platform - but not all the way. She came up short halfway there, and turned back, in a procession that was both frustrated and resigned.

Teel squinted into the spyglass. Something around the woman's neck… a collar and chain.

Bad guys were _so_ predictable.

She gestured for Mally to join her. "Do you know the queen by sight?"

Mally nodded and took the spyglass. "First Ones be praised," she said after a moment, her voice thick with emotion. "She looks… well, dirty, Captain, but whole."

That had been Teela's assessment too, but it was always smart to get a second opinion.

 _We'll be back, Your Majesty_ , she thought, then left the shelter of the log. They picked their way across the field of boulders again to the rest of the recon group.

"It's her," Teela said to Bow's unspoken question. "There's some kind of collar around her neck, and she's chained to the base of the throne. But she seems to be okay."

Murmurs and mutters from the Rebels - but pleased ones.

Hope lit Bow's face as well; it made him look younger. "Well, then," he said, grinning broadly, "let's go share the good news."

.

.

.

Glimmer, Madame Razz, and the other six Rebels had set up camp just inside the Whispering Woods while Teela's team reconnoitered. No point, after all, in camping in the regular, not-magically-defended forest when you had a perfectly good magical one right there.

So they returned to find tents pitched, dinner bubbling in a pot over a merry little fire, and eight expectant faces that froze as they came through the trees.

"Mother?" Glimmer asked, hope and fear warring in her expression, her posture, her voice. It struck Teela again just how _young_ the girl was. No wonder the Rebels felt protective of her.

Teela looked at Bow and nodded. For once he eschewed any and all of the flamboyant flourishes. "She's there and in one piece," he said simply.

Cheers and applause from the Rebels. Glimmer, eyes suspiciously watery-looking, abruptly gave Madame a big hug; the old witch patted her on the back and beamed at Teela.

"So what's the rescue plan, deary?" Madame asked.

If He-Man had been there, the plan would've been _He goes in and we catch the loose ends_. Most battle plans were like that when you had a well-nigh-invincible warrior on your side. He-Man would've probably just thrown a boulder at Hunga and then punched her really hard. The end.

But He-Man wasn't there. And for the first time in a long time - not since waking up in that Pelean village, really - Teela got to do the thing she'd trained so hard to do: lead.

She put her hands on her hips and looked at her troops, all silent now, watching her. Trusting her - with their lives, their queen, their future.

Simple, straightforward, mostly archery.

The harpies didn't stand a _chance_.


	10. to sleep, perchance

**ten: to sleep, perchance...**

.

.

.

Dinner was a predictable mix of excitement and nerves. And stew.

Madame Razz tried to magic up dessert, but it went awry; Teela, who knew a thing or two about unreliable spellcasters, was safely out of range when Madame said "lake" instead of "cake" and a great deluge of water rained down. Mostly it landed on Bow.

So. Not a _total_ failure.

Luckily, one of the other Rebels had found a bush full of juicy, purple berries, which made an excellent dessert - even if they did have to use leaves as plates. They sat around the fire, talking and eating, as dusk deepened into night and people began drifting away to catch some sleep.

Teela had assigned herself last watch, but she was still awake long after everyone else (except Mally, on first watch) was snoozing. Thinking about attacking the harpy stronghold with a bunch of green recruits, a kid, one soldier, and a witch who couldn't cast a spell straight… it kind of made it a little difficult to relax.

"Thank you, Captain," Mally said quietly from the opposite side of the dying fire. She poked a stick into the embers, making a brief flare of reddish light. "For helping us to rescue the queen. No matter how it goes tomorrow - thank you."

Teela shook her head. "Don't thank me yet."

"No. Hope is our strongest weapon against the Horde, and we've had precious little of that lately." Mally stared off into the darkness, face drawn, and Teela wondered if she was thinking about her son.

She wondered if Father was thinking about her.

Of course he was.

Her chest constricted, and she decided it was time to go to sleep before she got maudlin. "You know when to wake me?" she asked, standing, leaf of uneaten berries in hand.

"Yes, Captain," Mally said, poking at the fire. She gave Teela a lopsided smile. "See you then."

Teela made her way to her sleeping roll, tucked between the roots of an enormous tree with pastel green-and-yellow bark. What to do with her uneaten food? Her first impulse was to chuck it all into the woods for the animals to enjoy. But she paused as an old, fuzzy memory floated up to the surface.

Some fairy story Queen Marlena had read to her and Adam, back when they were still too young to read on their own. Something about leaving gifts. And getting shoes in return? Or maybe it was enchanted armor? Whatever.

If Twiggets were going to invade her space every night, she might as well get on their good side.

Teela covered the berries with another leaf, and rested it where the tree's roots made a flat shelf.

"I hope you guys like berries," she whispered to the shadows. "And, I dunno, maybe instead of shoes, you could leave me some weapons. Just a thought."

She settled in, using her pack as a pillow, and drew the blanket up.

She was asleep within minutes.

And then she was dreaming again.

Funny how she could tell right away, because she usually couldn't. Also funny how she knew that the nondescript, neglected back alley she was standing in was part of an Eternian city – one she'd never been to before.

It was dark here. Nighttime.

There were three people in the alley: two women and one wizened old man. The old man was cowering on the filthy dirt of the alleyway, a hand clenching at his injured side. One of the women stepped forward to stand over him, the butt of her staff striking inches from his face.

"This situation seems familiar," Evil-Lyn said to the old man, her voice razor-edged. In the violet glow cast by her staff's orb, she looked inordinately pleased.

"Have mercy!" the old man said, crossing his scrawny arms over his face.

Evil-Lyn raised her hand. Magic flared to life around her fingers; she flicked them upwards, and the old man was abruptly hauled into the night air. He hung there, floating, helpless to do more than glare balefully at her.

"I was merciful before, Marzo, when I gave you back your amulet," she said, a small, cruel smile on her face. "And look at how _that_ turned out."

Teela looked back at the old man. Count Marzo! Of course. He hadn't caused trouble since Skeletor's Council of Evil had been thwarted, although come to think of it, He-Man had reported seeing Marzo with Evil-Lyn recently.

Apparently the partnership hadn't ended well. Big surprise.

Count Marzo spat on the ground at Evil-Lyn's feet, his ugly face twisting up further. "Stupid witch! Playing with powers beyond your ken -! All of Eternia will be destroyed for the sake of your vanity!"

Evil-Lyn moved as if to strike him, backhanded, across the face, then arrested the motion – but not before Marzo cringed away.

That'd been the point, Teela realized; Evil-Lyn had wanted Marzo to flinch, to be afraid. It had worked, judging by his angry expression.

The witch's smile, meanwhile, grew larger and no less cruel. "On second thought, perhaps Hordak would like to mete out your punishment _personally_. I imagine he has quite a few ideas."

"Bah! I won't help you," Marzo said with a sneer. "It's a fool's quest, anyway. No one can open a portal to Despondos without one of Hordak's places of power, and they have all been destroyed."

"That… is not… true," the other woman said, speaking for the first time. Teela startled; she'd forgotten the woman was there. Her voice was a pained, rasping wheeze, as though her lungs couldn't quite handle the same air that everyone else breathed. Each word seemed to cost her.

The woman glided – not walked, _glided_ – into the circle of light cast by Evil-Lyn's staff, but some of the shadows dragged along with her. She was swathed head to toe in red and black robes; a red hood and scarf hid her face in permanent darkness. Two sickly yellow eyes glowed out, and in her green-skinned hands she held Count Marzo's amulet.

Teela squinted at the gem in the amulet. Wasn't it supposed to be some kind of ruby? It looked black.

The woman looped the amulet around Marzo's neck. It pulsed and hissed with black energy as it settled against his chest. "And you _will…_ be… of service… to Lord Hordak."

Marzo cried out, back arching, bones cracking and shifting into his other form. More black energy curled around him, like smoke. When the magical lightshow was over, he lifted a blank face to the robed woman and said, tonelessly, "I am pleased to serve Lord Hordak."

The woman's glowing eyes narrowed, and she wheezed and coughed. It took Teela a moment to understand that she was laughing.

Teela's skin crawled, and she took an involuntary step backwards.

 _Elders_ , she thought.

 _You are not safe here_ , a voice whispered in her ear.

Teela whirled around, but there was no one behind her. And when she turned back, she found herself standing in broad daylight on the roof of Castle Grayskull, where she and He-Man had once fought alongside a dragon – but it was and wasn't the same roof. This one was white and gleaming. No dragons, either.

Ugh. Dream whiplash _again_.

She walked to the crenellations and looked out across the land, already suspecting what she was going to see.

No thick, forbidding forest; no abyss; no desolate fields of rock.

Instead, there was a prosperous-looking village not far off, and farms, and a well-traveled road linking these to the castle. The base of the castle buzzed with activity: people arriving, people leaving, carts, animals, food smells, laughter, someone singing, sentries changing their posts, warriors in armor strutting around, court ladies gossiping, men arguing, children shrieking at play. Normal life for a castle.

Teela drew back from the edge. Okay. It was a vast improvement from Evil-Lyn and friends, but still a little creepy. Grayskull wasn't supposed to be _alive_. It was supposed to be a – a mausoleum. A big artifact for Skeletor to hunt. Of course the Sorceress lived in it, but she was more like a caretaker than a resident, right?

Movement flickered in the corner of Teela's vision, and she spun around.

The woman who was and wasn't the Sorceress – Veena – was disappearing down a flight of stairs that most _definitely_ had not been there a minute before. It was the play of sunlight on Veena's feathers that had caught Teela's notice.

"Hey, wait!"

Veena didn't wait.

Teela ran to the stairs, hoping that they wouldn't vanish into thin air. They didn't, though they did plunge her into sudden darkness when the stairwell turned sharply. She slowed, one hand resting on the wall, while she waited for her eyes to adjust. Then she hurried on.

After a few more turns, the stairway ended, and Teela found herself stepping out onto a wide balcony – the upper level to some kind of grand hall. There was a pyramid-throne at the far end of the hall, with golden wings sweeping up on either side. Teela wasn't sure if this was really part of Grayskull or not; her knowledge of the interior didn't go much beyond the drawbridge.

For some reason, though, she thought that it was.

Veena stood at the railing some distance from Teela, hands resting lightly on the stone, her face an unreadable mask.

Teela bit her lip, thinking, then joined her.

Veena didn't look at her, or acknowledge her presence in any way. Instead, she continued to gaze down upon whatever was happening on the hall's floor far below. Teela decided to follow suit.

Two figures were walking into the hall: the Sorceress (the _actual_ Sorceress, this time), and Adam.

Teela's heart leapt, and she opened her mouth to call out – but then she remembered that this was a dream. That wasn't really Adam down there, and she was not going to magically tell him that she was hanging around an enchanted Etherian forest, if he and Father wouldn't mind coming to get her.

She shut her mouth.

"…and Man-at-Arms must continue searching," the Sorceress was saying in her soft voice.

Teela's heart leapt again at the mention of her father. She glanced over at Veena. Still staring.

"But we've _been_ searching!" Adam exclaimed, frustrated. He pushed a hand through his blond hair, leaving it mussed, then gestured broadly at the hall. "We've searched the entire stupid planet! Not even He-Man can find her."

There was a bitter twist to the last sentence that made Teela blink. She'd never heard Adam talking about He-Man like that.

She looked more closely at her friend. Because it was a dream, even from this height she could see that Adam was exhausted: dark smudges under his eyes, skin pale, shoulders slumped. He really _had_ been searching for her – and losing a lot of sleep in the process.

Teela didn't know why her father wasn't in this part of the dream, but it was just as well. She didn't think she could handle seeing him looking so worn and worried.

"Adam. Teela may no longer be on Eternia," the Sorceress said. She didn't look so hot, either. Still recovering from King Hiss' venom, probably.

Now Adam looked alarmed. "You're not saying – she's not – she's still _alive_ , right?"

"Yes," the Sorceress said, swift and certain. "I would know if she was not. However, the spell that Evil-Lyn cast could have transported Teela to another planet, another dimension, or another time. It is a possibility that I have not wanted to consider."

Teela was expecting another outburst from Adam, but instead he squeezed his eyes shut and turned away. His hands had clenched into fists, and when he spoke, it was to the floor. "So how do we get her back?"

 _Adam_ , Teela thought. Her hands had clenched into fists, too. She hated seeing her best friend that miserable, even in a dream. In that moment, she would've given anything to be beside him.

"I shall–" The Sorceress broke off, pressing a hand to her forehead. Then she gasped and began looking about wildly. "Teela?"

"What?" Adam reached back to grab the hilt of the sword on his back. "What is it?!"

"I sense her presence. It is faint, but…" The beak of the bird headdress swung upwards, in Teela's direction.

 _Teela!_

That hadn't been out loud. Teela felt it reverberate inside her mind, shocking her into place, her fingers splayed on the cold, ancient stone of the railing.

An iron hand gripped her forearm, pulling her away from the railing and out of sight of the two figures on the floor. Just as quickly, the somber walls of Castle Grayskull faded into a colorless fog.

Teela looked at Veena, who had yet to let go of her arm.

Veena looked back at her. Sorrow had etched small marks around her eyes and mouth, but she seemed barely old enough to be Teela's mother.

"It is not yet time," Veena said. She had the same trick as the Sorceress: a quiet voice that echoed. "Much remains for you to do on Etheria."

"This isn't a dream," Teela heard herself say. She pulled her arm away; Veena didn't stop her. She took a step back, then another. Trying to put some distance between herself and the not-Sorceress, between herself and this craziness. "Is it. This – this is all really happening. Who are you?"

Veena held her gaze for a long minute, her face a mask. Then she sighed and looked down again. Her wings pulled in close to her body, and she started to fade into the fog. "You must remember," she said softly. "It will take all the children of Grayskull."

Teela frowned. She didn't get it. "What does that mean?"

But the woman was gone: vanished into the mist.

Teela turned around, a full circle, seeing nothing but endless fog. "What I am supposed to _do_?" she shouted.

And then she woke up.

Jolted awake, more accurately. With a very undignified snorting sound and hands flailing to grab her weapons.

Great. Some fearless leader.

Mally's quick footsteps came her way. "Captain?"

"I'm fine," Teela said. She looked around the camp to make sure no one else had been disturbed; they hadn't, but she was having difficulty shaking off the dream. "What time is it?"

Mally looked skyward. The enormous moon was low to the horizon, leaving the sky full of stars. On Eternia, Teela could calculate time, location, and direction by the stars, but here she had no clue what the patterns meant. Good thing Mally did. "Midnight, or close enough."

Teela glanced around again, and this time her eye caught on the spot where she'd left the berries just a few hours earlier. The berries were gone. In their place were five tiny pouches, made of leaves haphazardly stitched together. Not that Teela was great at sewing herself, but this looked clumsy. Childish.

She scooted closer and cautiously opened one of the bags. It was filled with a glittery, powdery substance, orange-red in color, faintly glowing in the moonlight. A girl not raised by King Randor's Man-At-Arms might have stuck a finger into the powder to investigate further, but Teela's reaction was to hold the bag a cautious distance away from her, being careful not to jostle it unduly. "What's this?" she asked Mally.

Mally crouched down and leaned in, squinting at the powder. "Oh! Oh, wow. That's giggleberry powder."

Teela's eyebrow lifted of its own accord. " _Giggleberry powder_."

"The Twiggets make it." Mally gave her an appraising look - appraising and respectful. "They must like you a lot."

Teela looked down at the pouch, then up into the deeply shadowed trees. No tinkling laughter, no little eye-lights… but that didn't mean they weren't there.

"Okay," she said. "Giggleberry powder. Great."

Mally grinned at her. "It doesn't sound like much, does it? But wait till you see the jealous looks tomorrow."

Teela closed the pouch in her hand and pocketed it. The other four bags she handed to Mally. "Here. Share the jealousy. Meanwhile, I'll take over the watch," she said, pushing herself to her feet and stretching.

"Aye, Captain," Mally said. It turned into a yawn halfway through. She sketched a mock salute and tromped off to find her own bedroll without a backwards glance.

Teela took a seat by the remains of the fire and rubbed her hands over her face.

So. Much. Weirdness.

She thought back wistfully to the days when she was just bait. That had been nice. No portals to other worlds, no dreams that weren't really dreams, no dire warnings falling solely on her shoulders...

The immensity and urgency of her mission suddenly threatened to drown her - or swallow her whole, like one of Mer-Man's fish monsters.

But she was better than that.

She straightened her spine and picked out a star. Who knew, maybe it belonged to Eternia. "I'll be home tomorrow," she told the star. "Just one little thing first."


	11. attack on harpy mountain

**eleven: attack on harpy mountain**

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The sky was still dark when the harpies began returning to Talon Mountain.

They had big, ugly wings, to match their big, ugly bodies, but they were absolutely silent fliers. The line of harpies stretched out, one after the other, in a ragged v-formation, wending its way over the forest and field of deadfall, pointing towards home.

No bird was dumb enough to sing while harpies were aloft. No harpy was smart enough to notice the bird calls that followed them this morning.

One harpy reached the cavern entrance. Two.

Before the third could cross the threshold, a particularly loud bird call rang out in the forest, and without further warning a barrage of glowing arrows soared into the sky.

The arrows arced into the harpies' path, causing the creatures to hiss and screech and break up their formation.

And then the arrows exploded in a shower of bright, dazzling fireworks, and the fun _really_ started.

Harpies panicked. Harpies wailed. Harpies wheeled about in disarray.

Another bird's call.

More arrows launched - this time with more conventional flames. They landed among the dry trees of the deadfall field, which promptly caught fire. Maybe some of the Rebels had been out there earlier, splashing flammable liquids around. Maybe those Rebels had also planted some packets of explosive powders. Might explain the little detonations of searing light and cracking noise that appeared as the fire spread.

Harpies lost their minds.

Except - one of them managed to spot four Rebel archers, who had stepped out from the cover of the trees to get better shots, and somewhere in her dull, slow brain the pieces clicked together. She grabbed a sister harpy, and they went hunting.

The four Rebels scrambled for cover. On the other side of the deadfall, three different Rebels stepped out from _their_ cover and loosed another volley of fireworks - then bolted away as well, dragging a witch who was hurriedly casting more spells on more arrows.

Outside of the cavern, it was chaos. Smoke. Screeching. And as the harpies inside the cavern realized they were under attack (it took them a minute), they began to fly out to meet their foes.

Queen Angella, still shackled to the throne's pedestal, stood at the far tether of her chain, wings tensed for flight, eyes searching the predawn madness outside. Maybe looking for her daughter. Probably. Definitely.

But Princess Glimmer wasn't outside.

The air took on a glittering purple shimmer and there was a soundless _pop!_ and Glimmer was standing on the pedestal not three feet behind her mother. Well, mostly standing. She kind of gasped and her knees buckled as she rematerialized, but that was okay, because she'd pushed herself to the limits by teleporting someone with her, and Bow caught her easily before she fell.

The queen whirled. "Glimmer!"

"Mother!" she cried, and flung herself at the queen, who luckily also caught her - and swept her into a ferocious hug.

In the cavern around them, harpies were darting hither and thither in varying degrees of panic. None of them seemed to notice the reunion.

Bow, however, was obviously noticing the harpies. He grimaced, then gave a courtly flourish and said, "Your Majesty, if you would allow me to free you from these chains…?"

"Thank you, Bow," the queen said. She didn't let go of her daughter, but she did tuck her wings to allow him easier access to the collar at her neck.

"It's enchanted," Bow said after a moment. "Just like we expected. Hold on, let me get the lock picks that Madame -"

But time and luck were up.

A bolt of white, magical light cut through the air with a sizzling _zap!_ and struck the throne behind the trio. Immediately, jagged rocks burst out of the impact site, their spikes aiming every which way, some of them coming a little too close.

Glimmer shrieked and jumped away from her mother. The queen turned, spreading her wings to protect her daughter from what was coming next.

Bow ducked the wings and scrambled to stay close enough to continue working on Queen Angella's collar.

There was a loud, angry, and fairly hideous scream. It echoed around the cavern.

The massive harpy who'd screamed - and who'd fired the magic bolt - swooped out of the cavern's shadows and landed in a perch on the back of the throne, grasping it with her taloned feet.

"You!" she screeched, rearing back, pointing a scepter at the queen. Red eyes blazed. Leathery wings spread. "You no leave, ugly bird! Prisoner forever!"

Queen Angella lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes, the picture of royal dignity despite the filthy condition of her clothes and the archer tugging desperately at the collar around her neck. In ringing tones, she declared, "I have never been your prisoner, Hunga. In my mind, I have always been free."

It was a lovely bit of philosophy, and it was totally lost on the raging harpy queen. Hunga screamed again, and started blasting away with her scepter.

Unexpectedly, it was Glimmer who stepped out and flung her own magic bolts in defense. Purple met white in eye-searing collisions, the energy spitting and spraying in all directions. For a few seconds, it looked like she might actually succeed in blocking Hunga's attack.

But the princess was young, and exhausted, and eventually, she missed.

Hunga's magic bolt slammed into the ground at Glimmer's feet. Rocks sprouted. Glimmer fell, shrieking, backward and over the edge, but managed to grab a hand-hold and stop herself before she tumbled all the way to the ground.

"Mother! Bow! Help!" she cried out. Her feet, in their lavender boots, scrabbled for purchase.

"No!" Angella tried to kneel to pull her daughter up, but the rock spikes and her chain were in the way.

Hunga laughed. It didn't sound any better than the scream.

Bow loosed a few arrows at Hunga, but they plinked harmlessly against her skin, and the harpy just kept laughing.

"Now you die!" Hunga said, sneering it. She aimed her scepter. "Now you _all_ die!"

And at that point, Teela figured it was time to intervene.

Teela had been keeping an eye on the entire operation, but the Rebels outside had things well under control, and anyway, the rescue was the most important part. So she'd entered the cavern - the traditional way, on the ground - at approximately the same time as Bow and Glimmer, and had clambered up to a ledge a little higher than the stalagmite throne.

The brown cloak made for excellent camouflage.

Now she jumped, whipping her staff around in an arc perfectly timed to smash the snake-head into the side of Hunga's big, ugly skull.

Hunga screeched and toppled off of her perch. She caught herself mid-air with a few wing-flaps, shook her head a few times, and whirled to face Teela, who had landed on the seat of the throne.

"Get the queen free!" Teela ordered Bow, not taking her eyes from Hunga. If it had been one of her Royal Guards, she wouldn't have bothered, but she figured Bow might need some help remembering that if Queen Angella was free, they could save Glimmer _and_ escape.

"Angella _never_ free!" The harpy queen punctuated that by spitting in Teela's direction. She had large fangs and a thick black tongue. It wasn't a good look. "And you die too!"

"Good luck with that," Teela said. She shifted her feet slightly and made sure the snake-head on her staff was facing out. "Personally, I don't think you really have a chance."

Hunga wasn't one for witty banter. She snarled and lifted her magic scepter again.

Teela pressed the button on her staff that triggered its light.

Father hadn't been impressed with the light's performance during the Shadow Beast attack, once upon a time, so he'd made some… improvements.

In typical Father style, that meant the light was now bright enough to illuminate the palace's entire Great Hall. At midday.

Hunga screamed once more - this time in pain. She reared back, hands pressed over her eyes, entirely blinded. The magic scepter fell unheeded to the floor of the cavern, where it shattered into satisfyingly tiny pieces.

Teela, who'd shut her own eyes, opened them to see Hunga wibbling and wobbling and crashing into stalactites, clawed hands clutching her nocturnal eyes, wailing in agony.

"Got it!" Bow shouted.

Angella yanked off the collar, leapt off the platform, made a tight loop around the throne stalagmite, scooped up her daughter, and sailed for the cavern entrance.

"Let's go!" Teela said to Bow, who nodded and followed hot on her heels as she made her own, non-flying way to the exit.

Outside, the sun was up, the harpies were in full retreat, and the Rebels were cheering because Queen Angella was flying around, smiting her foes left and right with pink-tinged magic and a lot of pent-up anger.

Bow sent up a special pink-and-purple fireworks arrow so everyone would know to fall back to the Woods. Rebels started moving across the charred deadfall zone toward safety.

Teela took a breath and grinned. They'd done it. It would've been a lot easier and elegant with He-Man or the Masters, but they'd done it. They'd rescued Queen Angella of Brightmoon from the Harpy Queen of Talon Mountain, and against all odds, it looked as though everybody was going to make it home in one piece.

 _Never congratulate yourself until the battle's over_ , Father would say.

And he was right, because it was at that moment when engine noise filled the air and a voice declared via loudspeaker, "SURRENDER, REBELS, OR FACE THE MIGHT OF THE HORDE!"


	12. rematch

**Twelve: rematch**

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"I _knew_ it was too easy," Teela said to no one.

She still had her staff in hand, and now she began running toward the nearest group of Rebel women, yelling, "Cover the queen! Get to the Woods!"

Because no way had she just fought a mountain full of harpies only to lose Queen Angella to Force Captain Blondie's goon squad.

The goon squad this time had arrived in some kind of transport vessel, now hovering over the burned-out field of deadfall, close to Talon Mountain. There were a dozen soldiers in gray armor on sky sleds, the woman with the red festival mask, and another young woman that Teela had never seen before. The new goon was also wearing red and black - it seemed to be the Horde's preferred color scheme - but instead of a festival mask, her accessories were a large, segmented tail with a barbed stinger at the end, and pincers in place of hands.

And, of course, Force Captain Adora. Still blonde, still razor-sharp.

Teela swiftly took stock of the situation, the way she knew Blondie was doing on her end.

Approximately half of the Rebels, including Madame Razz, were in the Whispering Woods or close enough that pursuing them would be useless. The other half had formed up around Queen Angella, who was on the ground amidst the deadfall, holding her daughter's hand. Both the royals looked exhausted. They had maybe a hundred yards to go to reach the Woods.

Bow was no longer right behind Teela. In fact, she had no idea where he was.

Sneaky. Surprisingly.

The soldiers were fanning out on sky sleds, intent on surrounding the queen's group. Blondie and the other two women remained where they were, standing on the edge of the vessel, overseeing the operation.

Teela would have wanted to be in between the Horde squad and the queen, but she wasn't; she was an outlying point. Easy to ignore.

She kept running, hoping to draw fire. Hoping to get Blondie to focus on _her_.

One of the soldiers was doing the talking, speaking into a handheld device that amplified his voice. He said, "IN THE NAME OF HORDAK, WE WILL DESTROY-"

An arrow embedded itself in the device. It sparked and fizzed, and the soldier dropped it with a yelp.

From the edge of the non-magical forest, Bow offered a salute and a grin.

"Scorpia," Force Captain Adora said crisply. She pointed at Bow, who was now offering them a cheerful wave. "Get him."

The goon with the tail stinger leaped from the transport, snapping her pincers with a surprisingly loud sound as she landed and sprinted towards Bow; three soldiers peeled off and followed her.

Bow made tracks into the forest. Scorpia and her three soldiers pursued.

Clever, Teela had to admit, to draw off four enemies at once. Also brave. And a little stupid.

Probably not as stupid as what she was going to do.

Which was to plant her feet, give her best and most piercing whistle, and when the two Horde women's heads swiveled in her direction, to brandish her staff and yell, "Did you lose something, _Force Captain_?"

The festival-mask woman lifted her upper lip in a silent, disdainful snarl, and moved as if to come after Teela. Force Captain Adora checked her with an upraised hand. "Take command, Lieutenant Catra," she said, not looking at the woman. "I have a score to settle."

Then she jumped down from the transport. Landed. Stood straight. Drew her sword. It caught the morning light in a bright flash. So did her blonde hair.

Teela shifted her grip on her staff. Unexpectedly, she found herself grinning. Something about this was almost _familiar_ -

Blondie moved.

Teela moved. Their weapons met in a clanging screech of metal-on-metal. Sword versus staff - it should've been easy. Teela had the weapon with the longer reach. Therefore she had the advantage.

Except Force Captain Adora was _fast_. And she was _good_.

She blocked Teela's strike, feinted with the sword, and while Teela was blocking _that_ , kicked her squarely in the stomach - hard enough to knock her down.

Teela hit the dirt and rolled, coming up on her feet just before the sword sliced into the ground. Her brown cloak took a slice on its hem, but not the skin underneath.

Adora was fast, but no one had ever called Teela _slow_.

And Teela wasn't exactly in it to win it. She was simply trying to keep the most dangerous opponent away from the most valuable members of the Rebellion: the queen and the princess. Once they'd reached the Woods, Teela was done here. It was not about a rematch.

Absolutely not. No way. Nuh-uh.

Force Captain Adora was pressing her towards the forest, and Teela was letting her. She didn't want to make it too obvious, though. She dodged a strike and swung the butt of her staff upwards, aiming for Adora's jaw. Adora saw it coming and flipped backwards, narrowly avoiding the impact. She landed some distance away, giving Teela a chance to check on the queen's group.

They were closer to the Woods. All of the Rebels were on their feet, though two were clearly wounded, and the other three were using their bows as clubs.

Without warning, pink and purple light flared - Queen Angella and Princess Glimmer, who obviously weren't as exhausted as they'd seemed. Soldiers in gray armor stumbled back, most them knocked to the ground.

Back at the transport, Catra pulled her mask down over her face, and suddenly a large, snarling cat with blue-black fur was bounding towards the queen's group.

Well. That answered a few questions.

But then Adora lunged forward with her sword, and Teela had to block, and then they were in the trees and the rest of the skirmish was hidden.

Teela countered, blocked, and at Adora's next thrust, leapt backwards, angling towards a tree trunk. A kick off of that and she grabbed a curving branch high over the girl's head, then swung herself up. The branch she landed on was bigger around than a full-grown human, though there were plenty of smaller branches hanging everywhere. All of them were curving, looping, twisty things.

Perfect.

If she'd been trying to get away from Adora, it would've been a failure, because the Force Captain was right behind her.

Teela backed slowly away, following the branch towards the trunk, spinning her staff in front of her. "How did you find us?"

Adora advanced, matching her pace, her sword held ready in one hand, the other outstretched for balance. "The harpies alerted us. Obviously."

Probably using magic. Or some of that technology the Rebellion didn't have. "Oh, _obviously_."

"You should surrender," Adora said. Cool and confident.

Teela said, "Maybe some other time," and struck at Adora's head.

Adora danced backwards. An easy dodge. But unlike a sword, Teela's weapon had two equally useful ends, and Adora didn't quite get out of range of the second. It caught her high on the left bicep; she hissed; her sword flashed out; Teela ducked under the strike and swept her staff at the girl's ankles; Adora jumped; Teela rose and jabbed the butt of her staff straight into Adora's stomach.

 _Very_ satisfying.

Especially the "oof!" noise.

And then Teela hooked the snake-head onto one of the smaller, swoopy branches and swung herself back down to the forest floor.

"Good try!" she called up, taking a cue from Bow and sketching a mock salute. She wanted to keep Adora following her, which was why she laughed as she turned to run. Definitely not because she was gloating. No. That would be completely unbecoming a captain of the Royal Guard.

In any event, Adora dropped to the ground in hot pursuit.

Teela moved deeper into the forest, still buying time for the queen. A dozen or so yards further on, she saw the wreckage of three downed sky sleds and three soldiers in gray armor, helmets knocked off, moaning as they lay in the dirt and draped over tree branches.

There was an arrow jutting out of each sky sled.

Where was Bow now? Hopefully doubling back to help Queen Angella. Teela figured it was just about time to do the same, although in a perfect world, she'd leave Force Captain Blondie down for the count first.

Because it was all about the queen's safety. It _definitely_ wasn't a rematch.

Adora caught up with her not far past the wreckage, and they traded blows back and forth, neither one of them really getting anywhere.

It was just a little infuriating. Teela had become one of the few female Royal Guards, had made captain at sixteen, and now spent her days fighting alongside battle-hardened veterans old enough to be her father (not to mention her father himself), many of whom had mechanical or magical enhancements - or both - while all she had was a staff.

She wasn't the most powerful warrior on Eternia, but she _was_ the best.

And she couldn't knock Adora down.

They clashed, Adora pressing close, her sword grinding sparks where it slid against the metal of Teela's staff.

"Surrender," Adora said through gritted teeth. She was sweating. Well, nice to know this was a workout for her, too.

"Dream on," Teela snarled back.

Adora's eyes narrowed - and then flicked up. Just for a fraction of a second. So fast it might not have happened at all.

Teela's eyes widened, and she dove sideways, turning it into a one-handed cartwheel.

Instincts were the most valuable thing a soldier possessed, Father said. Not that Teela needed proof of his wisdom, but even as Teela's hand touched down, Scorpia landed. The barbed stinger speared into the dirt Teela had just been occupying with murderous speed.

Teela, standing again, kept her staff ready, but one hand slipped to her belt. It was easier to reach now, because her brown cloak had a long, jagged, stinger-made rip in it.

Okay. That had been close.

"Where's the archer?" Adora demanded of Scorpia.

The other woman made a face as she straightened and pulled her stinger free of the earth. Arrow shafts, their fletched ends broken off, studded the chitin of her tail. "Got away."

Adora didn't like that, but she nodded in Teela's direction, and Scorpia grinned, wide and fanged. She snapped her pincers two times. "Hold still," she said, faintly hissing the "s".

"I don't think so," Teela said, and charged both women.

It was a feint. She wasn't intending to fight. Instead, she dropped to the ground and slid between them, and while she did, she threw the little packet of giggleberry powder straight at Scorpia's face.

Scorpia slashed at it with one of her pincers, clearly meaning to swat the packet away. Instead, the rough-sewn leaves split. Orange powder exploded into a glittery cloud.

Teela hopped to her feet and took off running. She didn't look back - until she heard Scorpia howling with laughter. The Horde woman was on the ground, under a slowly dissipating orange cloud, arms clasped around her abdomen, shaking uncontrollably as she laughed. She was completely helpless, completely disarmed, completely out of the fight.

Elders. This planet.

Teela couldn't see Adora. But that was probably because Adora wasn't lying on the ground, convulsing with laughter. Adora had a brain and had also bailed as soon as the giggleberry powder made its debut.

No, Force Captain Adora was maneuvering through the forest so she could resume the fight. Which she did. Dramatically, with the kind of sweeping, ambush attack that was really kind of Teela's thing and which she wasn't pleased to have turned against her.

They were back to the grueling, futile exchange of blows. Finding her way back to the original battle site, and the Whispering Woods beyond, was tricky when Teela had to expend all her energy trying not to be stabbed with a sword.

At least she was managing to retrace her path, as she discovered when she nearly stumbled on a piece of wrecked sky sled. The three downed soldiers were still very much down (or up, in the case of the unlucky guy festooning a tree branch), and their sky sleds were too.

But Adora was still very much active, and showed no sign of retreating anytime soon. She dropped under Teela's next strike and switched her grip on the sword in one smooth, lightning-quick move, slashing upwards at Teela's hands. Teela slid backwards and kept all of her fingers - but not her staff, which Adora's blade caught and pulled straight from her hands.

Teela made a useless grab for it as it went, and immediately felt foolish for doing so. The staff flew into the trees. Not gone forever; just gone from this fight.

Now she was unarmed.

This was… less than ideal.

Regardless, Teela brought her fists up automatically. _Never block with your face_ , Father had said, when she'd let her guard drop and her opponent had punched her square in the nose. Adam had laughed at her, until the third time she'd punched _him_ in the nose and Father made him practice holding his arms at the proper angle for an hour every day.

"Ready to give up?" Adora asked, with a small, predatory grin.

"You wish," Teela said.

Adora's grin widened. She raised her sword - and an arrow struck it just above the guard. The force of the impact knocked it from her hand, and got a startled gasp as well.

Both Adora and Teela whipped their heads around to see Bow, perched in a tree, another arrow nocked and ready.

" _Stay out of this!_ " Teela yelled, only to realize that the echo effect wasn't from any ringing in her ears; it was Adora, yelling the exact same thing at the exact same time.

Bow clearly hadn't expected a choral response. He lowered his weapon, looking confused. Neither girl noticed or cared, because they were back to the matter at hand.

Namely, fighting.

And more importantly, _winning_.

Neither of them had a weapon now, but that didn't matter. Teela had been fighting hand-to-hand since she could walk, practically, and while she preferred to have her staff, it had never really mattered to the dozens (if not hundreds) of Royal Guards and cadets that she had sent to the floor.

But once again, it appeared that Adora's training matched hers. Kicks didn't land, punches met empty space, strikes were blocked and parried.

Okay. Teela was completely done with this. Time for a better solution than slugging it out.

She scanned the area in between blows. Any good soldier used their environment to their advantage...

...like the undamaged blaster laying on the forest floor one good lunge away.

Teela blocked Adora's next cross, threw a high kick as a distraction, and dove for the blaster.

As it turned out, there were two problems with her plan.

One: she was a little too far away.

Two: Adora caught the long, trailing end of her hair and yanked her backwards. Really hard.

Teela lost her footing and went down badly, hitting the ground spine-first and halfway driving the breath from her lungs. Adora was already moving past her, going for the blaster herself, when Teela recovered.

 _Oh no you don't_ , she thought. She swung her leg around, hooking Adora by the ankle and knocking the other girl down.

Teela attempted to climb to her feet, but Adora wasn't having it. Well, fine.

Father had included grappling in her combat studies, pointing out that a great many hand-to-hand fights ended on the ground even when both fighters were a similar size, and as a young woman, she was likely to be smaller than her opponent. He'd probably been thinking of the drunken brawls in city taverns that the Royal Guard was sometimes called in to handle; sure enough, in her first year, she'd been dispatched to a few of them, same as any other rookie.

At one of those bench-clearing, window-smashing affairs, she'd had to take down a very angry, very inebriated man two feet taller and two hundred pounds heavier than she was. He'd clocked her in the head with a lucky wild punch right after she'd announced he was under arrest for disturbing the king's peace. It hadn't gone any better from there.

Compared to Adora, that fight had been a cinch.

Adora tried to put her in a choke; Teela flipped them and got the other girl in an armbar; Adora drove a knee into her stomach and pinned Teela's arm behind her back; Teela struck blindly backwards with her other elbow - and caught Adora squarely in the nose.

Lucky wild punch, indeed.

Adora was startled or injured enough - or both - to ease the pressure on Teela's arm. Teela freed herself from the hold and lunged forward, seizing the blaster, turning the motion into a shoulder roll, coming up on one knee.

Blaster aimed squarely at Blondie's face.

She had to hold the blaster in both hands, she was shaking so much from exhaustion and adrenaline. But it didn't matter. She'd won.

She'd _won_.

Ha!

"Surrender," Teela said, breathing hard, a triumphant smile curving across her face despite her best attempts to stay cool.

Adora kept her hands raised while she sat back heavily. She was out of breath herself, but there was nothing fatigued about the sharp, scornful look in her blue eyes.

"It's about time," Adora said.


	13. best frenemies

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 **Thirteen: best frenemies**

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Bow took the blaster and held it on Adora while Teela retrieved her staff and the Force Captain's sword. She did it quickly, because Bow looked like he was feeling pretty conflicted about the whole thing, and she was expecting Adora to make a break for it at any moment.

 _It's about time._ What did that even _mean_?

She hated when the bad guys were cryptic.

"Do you know the way back to camp?" Teela asked Bow, returning the staff to her belt and keeping the sword in her hand.

"Of course, milady," he said. It was a half-hearted effort. No flourish or anything.

 _He even sticks up for Force Captain Adora, can you believe that?_ Glimmer had said. Maybe the princess was too young to figure out why a teenage boy might say nice things about a teenage girl - especially a boy who flirted with any girl that wandered into view.

Teela rolled her eyes and traded him the sword for the blaster. Then she said to Adora, "You're now a prisoner of the Great Rebellion. _Please_ try to escape."

"I'm not going to escape," Adora said. She sounded as cool and in-control as she always did. "It took you long enough to capture me as it is."

Teela scoffed at that, which she thought was richly deserved. "On your feet," she ordered. "Let's go."

Adora rose as commanded. Teela positioned herself behind the Horde Force Captain, while Bow took the lead. They began trekking back through the forest.

Teela kept a weather eye on Adora the entire time, but she wasn't making any escape attempts. She was just walking. Quietly.

Definitely up to something.

Ugh. She hated when the bad guys were up to something.

Now that she'd remembered the earlier conversation, the other thing Glimmer had said - _He says she saved his life_ \- was sticking in her head.

It was hard to picture this ruthless, steely Force Captain as a creature of mercy. On the other hand, while Bow seemed the type to exaggerate, Teela didn't think he'd out-and-out lie. Eventually, it bothered her enough that she asked, "Did you really save his life?"

Adora's shoulders stiffened. She didn't turn to look at Teela.

"Yes," she said. It sounded like she was leaving off the rest of the sentence: _And I wish I hadn't._

For once, Bow didn't say anything. Teela suspected he hadn't heard them.

They left the forest and crossed the charred field of deadfall in silence. Teela was ready for an attack, but the transport vessel was gone, as were the soldiers. She wondered what would happen to Scorpia and the three soldiers who'd fallen prey to Bow. Presumably whoever woke up first would call for assistance.

Or maybe the Horde didn't care about one goon and three soldiers.

She suspected it was the latter - but hoped, for the soldiers' sakes, that she was wrong.

Once they got within shouting distance of the temporary campsite, Bow gave a bird-whistle signal and called out, "Captain Teela and Bow! We have a prisoner!"

A lot of noise from the camp, and then Mally and Glimmer both came running. Mally had a stolen Horde blaster raised, and Glimmer's hands were glowing - feebly, but determinedly - with shimmery purple magic.

When they saw who the prisoner was, Glimmer's mouth dropped open, and Mally, wide-eyed, said a curse substantially stronger than _By the First Ones_. Teela could tell because Mally immediately turned to Glimmer and said, "Begging your pardon, Your Highness."

"What - how did you -" Glimmer started, but she quickly gave up and simply yelled, "Mother! It's Force Captain Adora!"

Queen Angella would never do something as undignified as rush out to meet a prisoner. Teela walked Adora into the campsite proper, where the queen was standing, hands clasped serenely before her, wings folded behind. The other Rebels were hanging back around the outer edges of the camp, most eating, some tending to small injuries, all stopping to gape at the legendary Force Captain.

Madame Razz appeared to be taking a nap under one of the trees.

Teela found herself counting heads, and was relieved to see everyone was present and accounted for. Looked like her mission had been a success after all.

"Captain Teela," the queen said, smiling. She was still dressed in the same filthy clothes she'd worn as a prisoner, but she made it regal. "I am pleased to see you return unharmed. I can never thank you enough for what you've done today, for myself, my family, my kingdom, and for all of Etheria."

Teela inclined her head, saying, "No thanks are needed, Your Majesty" - which wasn't ever true, but was the kind of thing that royalty liked to hear. Then she put a hand on Adora's shoulder and shoved her down to the forest floor.

Adora sat. Gracefully. Her spine was perfectly straight.

"I disagree," the queen said to Teela. "But we shall continue this conversation later. Force Captain Adora, you are now a prisoner of the Great Rebellion. What say you in your defense?"

"I renounce the Horde," Adora said. Brisk. Businesslike. "I pledge my loyalty to the Great Rebellion."

Immediately, murmurs and whispers sprang up from the watching Rebels. Teela was every bit as surprised, but more than that, she was angry. What was the point of that ridiculous death match (it hadn't been a rematch) if Adora was going to turn anyway?

She didn't trust it, and she resented Adora for such a stupidly obvious ploy.

Well, obvious to some. With a wide grin and a courtly flourish, Bow swept his cloak aside, saying, "Then welcome to -"

"Bow!" Glimmer said, stamping her foot. " _No!_ There's no way! _No!_ " She whirled to the queen. "She's not renouncing anything, Mother! This is just a trick. She's the one in charge! _She_ ordered those Troopers to burn down Thaymoor!"

Adora looked directly at Queen Angella. "I don't want anything like that to happen again, Your Majesty. That's why I'm here. The Horde has to be stopped."

Queen Angella held Adora's gaze for a long moment. "I believe you," she said.

Glimmer started to protest; the queen forestalled it by laying a hand on her shoulder.

"If she wasn't telling the truth," Angella said gently, "how could she be here?"

Everyone looked around at the candy-colored trees of the Whispering Woods that surrounded them, and then up into their shadowy branches, where tiny eye-lights blinked.

Yellow. Purple. Green.

Teela suddenly remembered that this was a magical forest that never let in anyone with evil intentions, and wanted to smack herself for forgetting in the first place. Seriously. That was embarrassing.

She tried to cover by crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at Adora. "And what made you change your mind about your beloved Horde, _Force Captain_?"

Adora glared back at her, then shifted her focus to Queen Angella again. "Shadow Weaver had me under a spell."

Glimmer snorted, but Teela heard the undercurrent of genuine betrayal - genuine hurt - and realized that this was the truth.

Drat.

She hated when the bad guys were victims.

A sympathetic expression settled onto Queen Angella's face. "I assume after the Castle fell."

Adora nodded, short and sharp.

Out of the corner of Teela's eye, she saw Bow flinch. As well he might.

Her not-a-dream came to mind. Shadow Weaver, the dark energy crackling around Marzo. Marzo with blank, black eyes, saying whatever Weaver wanted. A laugh pushed through decayed lungs.

Teela was still having trouble picturing Adora as Bow's savior, but she could easily imagine a slightly younger Adora standing before the witch, probably with the same stony, defiant air, owning up to her actions. It was also easy to imagine Weaver putting the whammy on her so she could never do such a thing again.

Vicious. Skeletor had never stooped to something like that, though Elders knew some of his minions actually deserved it. Evil-Lyn, for one. Teela wouldn't feel at all bad if _she_ was mind-controlled.

"I woke up yesterday, and everything was _clear_." Adora's hands had been resting loose in her lap; now they curled into fists. Her voice took on a hard edge as she explained, "I knew that the Horde wasn't unifying Etheria; they were destroying it. And I knew that I had to stop Hordak and Shadow Weaver."

Bow cleared his throat and flourished again. "Any enemy of the Horde is a friend of -"

Teela cut him off: "And you decided the best way of doing that was fighting me?"

Adora gave her a look that spoke volumes. Scornful, scornful volumes. "I needed to be captured, and it had to look real. There's no advantage if they know I'm here voluntarily."

"No advantage for _who_?" Glimmer muttered, neatly echoing Teela's own thoughts.

The queen laid a hand on her daughter's shoulder again; she didn't aim any quelling looks at Teela, but if Teela knew royalty, she was probably running into the limits of Queen Angella's forbearance. "The Great Rebellion welcomes you gladly, Captain Adora. Your knowledge of the Horde will be invaluable."

Adora bowed her head respectfully, then got to her feet. "Actually, Your Majesty, I can't stay with the Rebellion. I need to get to Eternia."

"Where Shadow Weaver is," Teela said. Unimpressed.

This time Adora didn't even bother to look at her. "Yes."

"Why?" the queen asked. It was a genuine question, with no apparent suspicion behind it, but instead an unspoken invitation to confide. Adam could learn some diplomacy pointers from her.

Adora needed to learn diplomacy. Period.

"On Eternia, Weaver will open a portal to Despondos and release Hordak. Then they'll open a portal _here_ , and the army they've been building on Etheria will be able to conquer Eternia." Adora's blue eyes sliced a path across the group. "I don't know why the spell on me broke, when the Troopers are all still thralled. But I can stop this. Aside from Hordak and Weaver, I'm the only person who knows the entire plan."

Well. When she put it like _that_.

"Teela, you and Adora must go to Eternia at once," the queen said, apparently arriving at the same conclusion. "Though I wish I could send an army with you, I cannot spare anyone else. You've seen how few resources we have."

Teela wasn't thrilled by the idea of becoming Adora's travel buddy, but the rest of it made sense. Her heart beat a little faster at the idea of going home _at once_. "Understandable, Your Majesty. But… how are we getting there?"

Queen Angella looked thoughtful for a moment. She turned to Madame Razz, who was snoring lightly, mouth hanging open to display surprisingly excellent teeth. No help there. The queen turned back. With some reluctance, she said, "I would prefer to offer you an easier method, but, as one is not available... It's said that there's a magical portal within the Crystal Castle."

"That castle is a myth," Adora said. "The Horde scoured Skydancer Mountain. All the Troopers ever discovered were avalanches."

Queen Angella shook her head. "I can assure you, it's not a myth; merely a very difficult place to find. Aside from Mystacor, it's also the only place where you have a chance of returning to Eternia."

"You would have to retake Mystacor first," Adora said, even more grim than usual.

"Yes, and we certainly don't have time for that. Not to worry, though." The queen smiled. "My people have accessed the Crystal Castle for generations. It will open to the pure of heart - and to bearers of magic."

"I guess we'll have to try it anyway," Teela said. "How soon can we leave?"

Queen Angella extended her wings to their full span, pink feathers gleaming in the dappled forest light. "Immediately. I'll fly you both to Skydancer. The rest will be up to you."

"What! _No!_ " Glimmer stamped her foot again. "You're all crazy today! The Horde is going to be looking for you, Mother, you can't just _fly around_."

"If they were still in the area, that might be a concern," Adora said, dry. "I left Catra in command. By now she's returned to what you call the Fright Zone, where she's coming up with reasons why she can't possibly rescue me."

"She _did_ retreat pretty fast," Bow mused.

Adora smirked. "We're not friends."

Glimmer snorted; Teela almost did. How many friends did the _absolutely charming_ Force Captain Adora have? Teela guessed it was a number between zero and zero.

"You will need climbing gear and cold-weather clothes," the queen said, smoothly refocusing the conversation. "The mountain does enjoy its tricks. Daughter, do we still have a supply at the main camp?"

Glimmer nodded, but there was a smug tilt to it. "It's going to take all day to get there, though. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to leave for Skydancer."

The queen frowned. "I dislike the delay."

Took the words right out of Teela's mouth.

"Oh, don't you worry, dearies!" Madame Razz exclaimed. Her flower-bedecked hat popped into the middle of the group, wide awake and bright-eyed with excitement. "I can whip something up right away!"

Immediately, a chorus of voices began to protest her generous offer, but Madame rolled her sleeves up her skinny arms and waved her hands over her head, chanting, " _Razzle dazzle, muggle mold, keep these girls safe from the cold!_ "

The spell was so vague that Teela cringed, certain that it was going to go badly, badly awry - but there was a brief smatter of periwinkle sparkles and then she was wearing a very comfortable hooded parka, gloves, pants, and boots.

Adora had received the same outfit. They looked at each other, then at the queen, Glimmer, Bow, and Mally. Everyone had varying levels of surprise on their faces.

Madame Razz also looked surprised.

Teela tried not to think about that.

"Thank you, as always, Madame," Queen Angella said. She gave Madame an elegant move that was neither a bow nor a curtsy, but something between both. Teela made a note to practice that one later.

"It's no bother, Your Majesty, no bother at all. Now you hurry home," Madame said to Teela, giving her an enormous, bone-cracking hug. "And tell your mother I said hello, won't you, deary?"

"Yes, ma'am," Teela said, instead of _I've never even_ _ **seen**_ _my mother_. Hard to tell who Madame Razz thought her mother was - or who Madame thought _she_ was, for that matter.

Madame turned to Adora next. "And you, sweetheart," she said, enveloping Adora in a hug as well, "come visit us soon! Broom can't _wait_ to meet you."

Adora's eyes were wide, and for the first time since Teela had met her, she seemed totally at a loss. She gave Madame's shoulders a few tentative pats. "Um... okay. Thank you?"

Madame Razz released Adora with a grandmotherly pinch to the side of the girl's face, showered the rest of the group with effusive farewells, and then toddled off with a cheery, "First one back to camp is a rotten egg!"

Mally said, "I'll make sure she gets going safely, Your Majesty," and jogged after the old witch.

Queen Angella kissed the top of her daughter's head and said, "I shall be back this time, darling. You needn't worry for me - only for anyone who gets in my way!"

Glimmer gave her a brave, watery smile that only highlighted how young she was. "I'm sorry for them already, Mother," she said, then threw her arms around her mother in a hug that Angella immediately returned.

Teela looked away.

Adora's no-nonsense braid had frayed a bit in the fighting, and she was taking advantage of the moment to fix it. Teela resisted the urge to check her own hair. It never looked great after combat. In fact, it probably hadn't looked great since the night of the Masters' celebration, when it had been styled by Queen Marlena's maid.

She also resisted the urge to rub at the place where Adora had nearly yanked the roots out. Maybe that updo hadn't been so stupid after all.

"Wait," Bow said suddenly. "You can't leave - I mean, _both_ of you, of course, not just - uh - You can't leave because you still don't have any gear! Right! You'll need ropes, at least."

"He's right," Glimmer said. "Climbing Skydancer is dangerous even with all the equipment."

But the only equipment they had was back at the main camp, a full day away. Oh well; surely between Father, the Masters, and He-Man, Eternia could take care of itself a little while longer.

Maybe. She hoped, anyway.

Maybe not.

Just then Mally jogged back into view, now holding two large packs in her hands. "Your Majesty! These were in the camp. By Captain Teela's bedroll."

Teela swiftly looked up, but the three tiny eye-lights were nowhere to be seen. _Thanks_ , she mouthed anyway. Those Twigget things were starting to grow on her.

"It seems we may leave immediately, after all," Queen Angella said. She spread her wings and flapped them once. "Please make your farewells, should you wish to."

Glimmer immediately darted forward and flung her arms around Teela in a quick, hard hug. "Thank you for saving her," she whispered. Then she took a few steps back, cleared her throat, straightened her shoulders, and said imperiously, "The Great Rebellion thanks you for all of your assistance, Captain Teela. We will miss your leadership."

"Maybe I'll come back some day," Teela said, smiling at the kid. Personally, she thought it was unlikely. But unlikely and impossible were two different things, so who knew?

Glimmer returned the smile. She turned to go, giving Adora the darkest, coldest look a skinny little girl in sparkly purple armor could give someone, and flounced off.

Bow was next, stepping forward with a grand flourish. He took a breath -

\- and Teela hurriedly put up a hand to stop him. "Don't say it!" she said. "Just… just, um, hold it in your heart."

Bow closed one hand and pressed it to the insignia on his chestplate - which was in fact a heart, bisected by an arrow. "Your wish is my command, milady," he said, grave. Then he turned to Adora.

Adora pointed at Teela. "What she said."

He repeated the hand-to-chest gesture, bowed from the waist, and backed away with a courtly flourish - and a grin.

With that out of the way, Mally and the other Rebel women approached; they ignored Adora or gave her dirty looks _a la_ Glimmer. Mally held her hand out to Teela and said, simply, "Thank you, Captain."

Teela assumed she meant to shake hands, and was both surprised and pleased when the Rebel instead offered a warrior's farewell - clasping forearm to forearm - as well as a salute. The nine other women did the same, except for one who had her arm in a sling. She only did the salute.

"It was an honor to lead you," Teela said to all of them. She looked at Glimmer and Bow. "And it was an honor to help you."

And that was all completely, perfectly true. But in her mind, she was already back on Eternia.


	14. on top of the world

**fourteen: on top of the world**

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Etherians were nice and straightforward with their naming. The moon? Bright. The Woods? Whispering. Giggleberry powder? Made you laugh.

No surprise that Skydancer Mountain disappeared into the clouds.

Queen Angella, who was much stronger than she looked, had carried both Teela and Adora from the Woods to the mountain. As Adora had predicted, there'd been no sign of Horde activity. Now the two girls were deposited on the mountainside, just above the treeline.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Teela said. She adjusted her pack and gave the queen the same salute the Rebels had given her earlier. "I'll send aid from Eternia if I can."

"That is more than anyone expects, Captain," the queen said. She fluffed out her feathers, then lay her wings flat against her back. "Stopping Hordak's plan will be enough to earn our gratitude forever."

"While we're gone, Your Majesty," Adora said, "you should make as many raids as possible. Catra is our weakest lieutenant. And the Troopers - I suspect Weaver placed a talisman in their armor. Break that, and you may be able to free them."

The queen smiled. She lifted one hand, which glowed pink, and touched her fingers - softly, lightly - to Teela's forehead and then Adora's.

"May the First Ones bless and keep you," Queen Angella intoned.

Both Teela and Adora bowed.

The queen spread her wings and was gone. One pink feather drifted in the wind; it blew away, out over the mountainside.

Teela looked up, where the peak vanished into clouds, and then at Adora, who had already begun hiking.

What a jerk.

Teela puffed out a heavy breath and followed.

The first part of the climb was easy enough. The mountain rose at a steep but doable angle, with nothing trickier than some fallen boulders or patches of scree for them to skirt around. The view was outstanding; they were already higher than the plateau of the Crimson Wastes, and the day was so clear that they could see to the curve of the horizon.

Teela wasn't feeling chatty, and neither was Adora. They climbed in silence, focused on the job ahead of them.

Then they reached the clouds.

Teela had seen that they were getting closer and closer to the clouds, of course. The things were hanging there, unnaturally permanent, billowing and wisping and flowing but never _really_ going anywhere. Based on what Queen Angella and Adora had said, Teela had been expecting magic to show up once they entered the lowest cloud layer.

And boy, Skydancer Mountain did not disappoint. Abruptly, the sunny day was gone, replaced by endless gray fog that dimmed the light so much it might've been dusk.

"This isn't good," Teela said.

Adora nodded, looking around. "The Troopers reported blizzards. Get ready for that."

They kept climbing. Gradually, the rocks beneath their feet began to show signs of recent snowfall. Then a few fat, lazy flurries began falling, prompting both girls to pull up the hoods of their parkas and tie them firmly in place. Just in time, too, as the wind increased with every step further up the mountainside.

They reached a section where the trail became a narrow switchback. Unease suddenly rippled down Teela's spine. Without questioning why, she halted and started to swing her pack down from her shoulder, intent on finding the rope.

And she would have been successful, if the rocks under her feet hadn't suddenly decided they would much rather be at the base of the mountain. The entire section of trail collapsed beneath her.

She plummeted before she could do more than gasp -

\- and caught herself, somehow, impossibly, on the raw, gaping edge of the collapse.

One hand. Her shoulder screamed; her forearm burned. Her pack tumbled down into the gray clouds and was gone.

Teela scrambled to find another handhold, a foothold, anything that would be more secure, but so much earth had fallen away that she was more or less dangling in open air. She looked up.

Adora looked down at her. There was no expression on her face.

One second. Two.

Adora stepped back from the edge. Teela couldn't see her anymore.

This was bad.

How easy, after that long ridiculous fight, to just let Teela fall. Maybe Adora hadn't even thought of it until right now. Maybe the Woods had been right, and she hadn't had any ill intentions before this perfect opportunity came along. Maybe she was rethinking the plan. She could let Teela fall, find the Crystal Castle that Queen Angella had confirmed existed, go to Eternia. "Pure of heart" didn't have to mean "good of heart." She could get into the Castle.

Reunite with Shadow Weaver.

Help the witch.

Destroy the world.

Teela tried to grab for a new handhold again, desperate… but then the end of a rope smacked her in the face, and Adora called, "It's anchored! Climb!" and for some dumb reason Teela trusted her enough to let go and grab the rope instead. She climbed upwards and Adora pulled backwards, and together they got her over a still-crumbling lip and onto solid ground.

She wanted to stand up and start round two (or was it three?), but that had been one brush with death too many for the morning, so she just sat down and glared while she tried to make sure her shoulder and arm were intact.

"I thought you were going to let me fall," she said, not bothering to be anything other than accusatory.

Adora also sat down. "I thought so too," she said, looking at Teela. For once her expression wasn't disdainful, or scornful, or calculating. She was _scared_. Eyes wide, skin pale, mouth tight _scared_. Her hands trembled as she coiled the rope again.

As unsettling as the episode had been, it was nice to see actual human emotion in Adora. And Teela knew a thing or two about being mind-controlled by a spell; she could sympathize.

A little. Not a lot.

Adora wiped at her face with one hand, summoning a half-hearted grin. "Then again, I've only been not-evil for a day. Even I need practice."

Teela huffed a laugh and stuck out a hand, which Adora accepted, and they hauled each other upright again. "Is _that_ why you wanted to fight me? For practice?"

"Of course. It's been years since I had an equal opponent," Adora said as they started hiking again. Her grin grew, then faded. "And I knew you were good. Shadow Weaver has files on all of the Masters."

"Let me guess," Teela said, dry. "Information courtesy of Evil-Lyn."

"Most of it," Adora agreed. "Some things Hordak knew himself. He's still very powerful, and he keeps a close eye on Eternia." She paused while they scrambled over an ice-crusted boulder blocking the trail, then asked, "How did you know that trick would work on Scorpia?"

Translation: _How did you know Scorpia would be stupid enough to hit a full pouch thrown at her face?_ Teela began her answer with another question: "There are files on Skeletor's crew?"

Adora wrinkled her nose, apparently in distaste for Evil-Lyn's perfidy. Rich, coming from someone who was in the middle of her own very comprehensive betrayal. "She was thorough."

Teela flashed a grin of her own. "In that case: Clawful."

Adora thought about that for a moment, then snorted. "Must be the pincers."

"How do you even get dressed with -?" Teela finished by miming a snapping pincer with one gloved hand, then wondered if that was a stupid question.

But Adora was nodding before she was through. "I've been trying to figure that out for _years_."

They exchanged grins, and Teela said, impulsively, "I got possessed once, by an evil snake-spirit thing."

Adora's expression went immediately blank.

"I - _my body_ , at least, attacked a few villages. There was a fight with some of my friends. I don't remember it."

Nothing from Adora. She could've been one of Father's machines.

"They forgave me," Teela said. "Or - they didn't think they needed to forgive me, because it wasn't _me_."

And also because He-Man could've punched her halfway through the planet if he'd had to, so she hadn't really posed much of a danger to him.

Adora still didn't say anything. She kept climbing, the snow falling more thickly now, mirroring her attitude. Finally she said, "I don't have friends. I don't have anyone."

Teela had been mentally joking about it, but it was less funny now, with those blue eyes staring bleakly ahead. "No one?"

More silence. More snow. And then Adora grimaced and said, "Shadow Weaver raised me."

With that, the true scope of what Adora was doing opened up before Teela. She wasn't merely betraying an oath, as hard as that would be for a dedicated warrior; she was betraying a mother.

And if their positions were reversed - if Teela woke up one day and realized she had to go to war against Father - Elders, would she even be able to do that?

She had fallen behind Adora, stunned, and now she hurried to catch up, putting a hand on the other girl's shoulder as she reached her.

Adora removed her hand with an deft, instinctive roll of the shoulder, but she came to a halt anyway.

"I'm sorry," Teela said, and she meant it. "I can't imagine just… waking up and knowing that you have to betray your mother."

"She isn't my mother. I'm an orphan." Adora took a deep breath and made a face that somewhere between a smile and a grimace. "And I didn't just wake up. There was a dream first."

That got Teela's attention. If Adora was part of the weird dream club… "What about?"

Adora shrugged. "There was a woman, and a castle. I didn't catch any details. Everything was blurry."

Teela opened her mouth to ask, _Did that woman have wings and did that castle have a big skull face?_

But she never got the chance, because the magic clouds abruptly got tired of having them on the mountain. In the space of seconds, the snow went from no real concern to raging blizzard.

Teela caught Adora's arm and held on tightly as the wind whipped up ever higher and faster. The snow it was blowing felt more like tiny ice daggers, and it did a really, truly fantastic job of making the rest of the world disappear.

"We have to find shelter!" Adora shouted over the roar of the wind. She was gripping Teela's arm just as hard as Teela was gripping hers.

Teela shook her head. "If we stop, we'll die!" she yelled back. "Besides, where's shelter?"

Adora said something, but it was lost beneath the noise. Maybe it was agreement, because she took a step forward, and Teela stepped forward too, and they both trudged onwards, into the icy dragon's teeth of a storm that seemed very intent on blowing them off the face of Skydancer Mountain.

Keep moving, Teela told herself. One foot. Then the other. High knees. Get a sure grip before shifting weight. Keep going up.

The winds howled. The snow burned. The mountain rose in front of them. It went on and on.

Adora shouted suddenly, tugging on Teela's arm. For a heartbeat, Teela thought the other girl was falling, and that they'd both be tumbling to their deaths imminently, but then Adora leaned in closer and yelled in her ear, "I see something up there!" She pointed.

Teela squinted. Through a small break in the raging snow, she saw something, too. It looked a lot like a set of double doors, standing free on the mountainside.

"Better than nothing!" she told Adora, who nodded once, sharply. With renewed purpose, they changed course and struggled upwards towards the doors. The blizzard didn't seem to like their decision and roared more fiercely.

 _I'm not dying here_ , Teela thought. _I have to save Eternia. There's no time for dying._

Then somehow they were standing at the doors. They ought to have served as a windbreak, if nothing else, but the winds changed direction and kept driving snow and ice right at Teela and Adora.

Adora laid a hand on one of the doors. "It's warm!"

Teela felt the door, too, and found that Adora was right. It was so warm, in fact, that she felt its heat through her gloves, and she had to lift her hand away.

So. Magic doors. Fun.

The doors were twice as tall as they were, made of gleaming metal, the color of old, burnished gold, with intricate designs of braids and loops carved into them. In the center, spanning the join of the two doors, was a single large symbol. It might have been a flower, or it might have been a flame - it was hard to tell through the snow. Set in the middle of the flame-flower was a faceted jewel bigger than Teela's head.

There were no knobs or handles.

"Okay," Teela shouted. "How do we open magic doors?"

Adora tilted her head, considering. "Push really hard?"

It was as good as anything Teela could think of. She took one door and Adora took the other, and they both braced their feet in the snow and shoved as hard as they could. Hands. Shoulders. Backs. Didn't matter; the doors never budged.

They fell back a few steps, breath coming in short, heavy pants. Adora was looking grim, but Teela was well on her way to anger. Okay, rage. She had a planet to save. She didn't have time for some stupid magic doors that probably needed a stupid magic secret password chanted over them.

She went up to the big dumb jewel in the middle of the doors. No doubt it was a trick of the storm, but the jewel seemed to change colors as she glared at it - palest pink to heart's-blood red and every color in between. Her reflection glared back at her.

Fury welled up inside her. She banged the side of her fist on the center of the jewel, which didn't do anything except hurt her.

"Open!" she yelled. She hit the jewel again, putting all her anger into it. " _Open!_ "

The doors opened.

The jewel vanished and the golden doors swung inward on silent hinges, revealing a large, shadowy, empty chamber beyond.

"Good work," Adora shouted, clapping her on the shoulder. Teela jumped a little. She'd been so busy gaping at the open doors that she'd lost track of everything else.

"Thanks," she called back. She rubbed the side of her fist. Elders. What a coincidence - because no way was the magic secret password two thumps while screaming.

Adora took something out of her pack, then shook it with one crisp _snap_. A light flickered to life, some kind of crystal, casting a pale yellow glow. She threw the light into the dark chamber, where it illuminated the floor around it and not much else. Still, every little bit helped, Teela supposed.

"Let's go!" Adora ordered. Back in Force Captain mode. She drew a blaster from her pack that she _definitely_ was not supposed to have, and that Teela hadn't seen her slip into the pack earlier. Maybe she'd done it while Teela had been getting farewelled.

Teela expanded her staff. Just in case.

They entered the chamber cautiously. It was pleasantly warm and blessedly quiet after the gale outside - and really, really dark. No walls visible. A half-dozen steps took them to the edge of the light cast by Adora's crystal.

The doors shut.

Teela had been expecting it - it was the obvious magical-door thing to do - but it still made both of them start and move into a defensive position, back to back, weapons out.

"Now what?" Teela said.

"Maybe you could punch something else," Adora said dryly.

Teela had nice, sharp retort for that, but before she could deliver it, someone turned the lights on, and they got their first real look at their new surroundings.

Gold walls, curving in a circle. Gold floor, with a pool of still water in the middle. Gold ceiling, high above. The light was coming from ancient-looking clusters of white crystals, hanging - or floating - in midair. Everything sparkled, everything shone. And what at first glance looked like floor-to-ceiling windows lining the walls were, Teela realized with a double take, all faceted, color-changing jewels. Absolutely enormous ones - taller than an adult human. They shifted gently from hue to hue as she watched.

Beyond the jewel-windows were nothing but sun, sky, and clouds.

"I think we found the Crystal Castle," Teela said. Surprise! Another spot-on Etherian name. She relaxed out of her stance and put her staff away. The only magical castle she knew had a full-time keeper, so she called out, "Hello? Is anyone there?"

No response.

Beside her, Adora made a noise. Teela looked at the other girl, frowning, wondering why she had such a weird expression on her face.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine." Adora holstered her blaster and began stripping off her pack and Madame's cold-weather clothes. "For a moment, it felt like I'd been here before. But hypothermia plays tricks on you."

Teela's eyebrow went up. She was cold, definitely, but she didn't have hypothermia. Doubtful that the tough-as-nails Force Captain would. "Sure," she said, letting it slide. She removed her own gear while she surveyed the chamber again. "Where do you think they keep the portal to Eternia?"

Adora got another weird look on her face. She turned and stared at the circular pool in the middle of the floor. "Over there."

They walked closer to the pool, which remained still and non-threatening. In fact, nothing about the Crystal Castle was threatening. It was… calm. Serene.

The water in the pool wasn't normal, of course: it had a rainbow shimmer. But it didn't look like a portal. It looked like water. Calm. Serene.

"Is anyone around?" Teela asked the room again. "Anybody? We could use some help…?"

Adora knelt down at the edge of the pool, and, before Teela could stop her, reached out and touched the water with one hand.

Teela flinched away, expecting some kind of explosion or other catastrophe. The only thing that happened was the water began to glow, and the rainbow shimmer got more shimmery.

"Hello?" Adora asked.

 _WHAT DO YOU SEEK?_

The voice was everywhere and nowhere, booming and whispering, neither masculine nor feminine. It had the feel of telepathy. Great.

"We need a portal to Eternia, please," Teela said, looking around the chamber.

A long pause.

Adora rose and stood next to Teela. Teela never would've admitted it in a hundred years - a million years - an eon - but it was reassuring to have Adora on her side.

"Please," Adora said. "We have to stop Hordak."

The pool glowed brighter and the shimmer intensified.

 _YOU MAY HAVE IT._

One of the window-jewels was suddenly replaced by a portal: there one second, and poof! Swirly, glowy rainbow magic the next.

Teela automatically moved closer to the portal, hardly daring to believe it was really happening. Right there. Two feet in front of her. That was her way home. She was _going home_.

And what a souvenir she was bringing with her.

"Are you scared?" Adora said beside her.

"No," Teela said, scowling.

"Go or get out of my way." Adora looked over her shoulder, called, "Thank you!" to the castle's guardian (whatever and wherever it was) and leapt into the portal.

The rainbow magic flared around Adora's passage. Teela got ready to make the jump, too, then checked herself.

"Thank you for, um, opening the doors," she said in the direction of the rainbow pool. "And for the portal. Hordak has to be stopped, or both our planets are toast. So, um… yeah. Thanks again."

She was stepping through the portal as she heard the voice once more.

 _IT WILL TAKE ALL THE CHILDREN OF GRAYSKULL._

And then Teela was gone.

.

.

.

The world folded and unfolded.

Teela stumbled, then righted herself, her boots automatically finding purchase on the thin, rocky soil. Familiar soil. With a familiar drawbridge crossing a familiar abyss only a few yards away.

Castle Grayskull.

She let out a whoop of joy and victory and spun around to see Adora, suddenly so _happy_ that grabbing the Force Captain in a bone-crushing hug sounded like a great idea. "We made it!" she exclaimed, letting go again, because really, what was she thinking, hugging Adora? – who looked like Teela might be trying to infect her with something. Instead, she turned back to face the castle, cupping her hands around her mouth as if it would do a bit of good. "Sorceress! _Sorceress_!"

 _Teela!_ came the answering call in her mind. The Sorceress sounded pretty delighted, too. Astonished and delighted.

Teela shaded her eyes with one hand, squinting up at the narrow castle windows. "Can you tell Father -?"

 _I have already. He will be joining you in a moment._

"My father's on his way," Teela relayed to Adora, unable to stop grinning like an idiot while she said it.

The other girl nodded, stiff and wary. The weird expression was back.

 _It is a great relief to have you home again, Teela_ , the Sorceress said warmly.

Teela suddenly remembered her not-a-dream – the Sorceress giving Adam counsel about searching for her. Apparently it _was_ a relief.

 _Thank you_ , she thought, tentative. She wasn't really a fan of telepathy.

 _You are very welcome._

And then feet were pounding across the drawbridge, and her father yelled her name, and Teela somehow ran into him halfway, and he caught her up in the biggest hug she'd allowed since she was in pigtails.

"Teela," he kept saying. Stroking her hair. "You're safe. Thank the Elders."

She rested her head on the old battered green of his chestplate and, for the first time, wanted to cry.

Instead she pushed back and gave him a watery smile. "I'm okay, Father. We have more important things -"

"Hey!" Adam said, elbowing past Father. Teela started; she hadn't even seen him. "What about me? Don't I get a hello too? I mean, here I am, looking all over Eternia for you, and you can't even say -"

Teela cut him off with, "Hello, Your Highness."

He gave her a satisfied smile that only highlighted the marks of exhaustion on his face. "That's better."

And somewhat to Teela's surprise, Adam pulled her into a hug, too. A fierce one, that went on for kind of a long time. After a stunned second, she put her arms around his shoulders and hugged him back.

He smelled the same. Like home.

"It's about time," he said into her ear. "What took you so long, Captain?"

She grinned and opened her mouth to say something tart in return, but the words she heard herself saying were, "I don't hate you."

He let go and stepped back, startled. And confused, to judge by his expression. "What?"

"I just – you know." She shrugged, acutely aware that her father and Adora were watching them, though at least her father was pretending not to. "The party. I wasn't, um… at my best."

"Oh," Adam said. He scratched the back of his head, then grinned at her, wide and sharp. "In that case, I'd hate to see you at your worst!"

She rolled her eyes, unable to stifle her own grin. "Ugh! Just be glad I'm home, _Adam_."

"Oh, believe me, we all are," Father said. He came back to her side and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. "Now. Who's your friend?"

 _Friend_ was overstating it, but Teela was feeling generous. "This is Adora."

"Horde Force Captain Adora," the girl said, voice flat, blue eyes sharp. "You're the king's Man-at-Arms? And the prince."

Father and Adam nodded.

"Hordak's witch is here," Adora said in that same flat voice. "She's going to open a portal to Despondos and summon him."

Well. Adora sure knew how to kill a mood.


	15. no place like it

.

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 **fifteen: no place like it**

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.

.

Her father had called the palace before they'd even fired up the Wind Raider, letting the Masters know that the search was off. So Teela expected to see a couple of them waiting when they arrived.

And yup, there was Mekaneck, and there was Ram-Man, waving and grinning from the courtyard… as were a good two dozen Guardsmen and nearly as many courtiers.

Oh, and the king and queen of Eternia.

"I've been gone for less than _three days_ ," Teela said, disbelieving. She waved in return, of course, then sat back, arms crossing over her chest a little defensively.

Next to her, Adora was also sitting back and crossing her arms. Probably pretending that she didn't care about the view. Or the welcoming party.

Maybe she truly didn't care.

 _I don't have anyone_.

But maybe she did.

"As I said. We were worried," Father said, not looking away from the controls.

Adam, sitting next to him, turned halfway around and said with a grin, "Yeah, for some reason people like you."

Teela rolled her eyes. There was no time to snark back, though, because they were landing, and she should try to look professional in front of _all these people_.

Elders. Three days! Imagine if she'd been gone for a full week.

The Guardsmen and court gawkers crowded in as soon as the Wind Raider's engines shut down, cheering and clapping. Then they crowded right back out, because Mek and Rammie were wading through, clearing a path for the king and queen.

Adam vaulted down first, landing beside his parents. Queen Marlena slipped an arm around him and pulled him to her side. A small, affectionate gesture, one repeated hundreds of times across the years. Teela hardly even noticed the sting any more.

Teela disembarked, followed by Adora and Father. Only one of them was grabbed off the ground and into a spine-snapping hug by Ram-Man.

No prize for guessing who.

"Teela!" Ram-Man said, setting her delicately back down. "We been lookin' for ya _every_ where!"

Teela caught the side-eye Adora was giving the big warrior, and wondered if it was out of jealousy because she wasn't getting a hug, or relief because she wasn't getting a hug. "Me too," she said, grinning up at him.

Mekaneck, always more mellow, just nodded at her - though he couldn't keep a pleased smile off his face either.

Before she could quite stop herself, she scanned the crowd again, looking for He-Man. Of course he wasn't there. He would've been searching farther away than anyone else, probably. It might take him the better part of a day, or more, to get back to the palace.

Disappointment twinged anyway.

Ugh! Every time time she thought she was done with that stupid, stupid crush... She shoved it aside again and refocused on things that actually mattered. Like greeting her sovereigns.

Teela gave a crisp bow to King Randor. She intended to do the same to Queen Marlena, but was stopped mid-motion when the king laid an avuncular hand on her shoulder and declared, loudly enough to be heard down in the city, "Captain Teela! Good to have you home!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Teela said. Inwardly, she was reeling. Three. Days. Why was everyone acting like this?

The king kept a hand on her shoulder, the better to propel her along towards the palace itself. The rest of their group followed, with Ram-Man bulldozing ahead and Mekaneck dissuading anyone from tailing too closely.

"We were all concerned when you disappeared," King Randor continued, still using the booming, jovial voice he typically reserved for winning over reluctant heads of state. "But our enemies have underestimated your abilities once again!"

They entered the nearest palace building, one of the smaller, administrative wings, and guards shut the doors behind them. Their group were the only occupants of the corridor.

The king's hand dropped from her shoulder. In his normal voice, he said, "You're all right, Teela?"

She looked at Father, who gave a slight nod. "I - uh, yes, Sire."

Randor patted her on the shoulder, also normally. "My apologies for the show out there, but Marlena wanted to make sure no one got the wrong idea."

Teela looked at the queen, who smiled. "Welcome home."

Political stagecraft. Another _ugh_. Nevertheless, she was grateful: the king and queen had publicly welcomed her, with a compliment to her skills. Her disappearance must have been a hot gossip item; the greeting would smooth her return to the (ridiculous) swirl of palace life.

She had said _thank you_ so many times recently, it was getting ridiculous. But once more couldn't hurt.

The queen waved it away. "And who is this?" she asked, turning her warm, gentle smile on Adora.

"This is a _former_ enemy officer," Teela said quickly, before Adora could botch her own introduction by being a flat, cold automaton with no friends. "She's here to help."

The queen's interest sharpened, although her expression stayed mild. Teela noticed Father had drawn the king a short distance away, and they were having a very quiet, urgent conversation about something that was making King Randor look increasingly grim.

No prize for guessing what.

"Queen Marlena, this is Force Captain Adora," Teela said, trying to finish the introductions before she missed anything good. "Adora, this is the queen."

The queen gave Adora a long, thoughtful look. Maybe she too was trying to square the fluttery name with the battle-begrimed, unsmiling soldier standing in front of her. Really - who'd named her? Not Shadow Weaver; the witch would've given her a name like Demona, or Darkana, or anything suffixed "the Destroyer."

You know. Something subtle.

Adora bowed. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty."

"Likewise," the queen said. Her eyes flicked over Teela's shoulder, and her smile widened even as she stepped to the side. "Incoming, dear."

Teela turned just in time to see a very excited Orko flying at top speed down the corridor. " _Teela!_ " he cried, throwing his arms wide to greet her - except, of course, he forgot to slow down first.

Orko didn't weigh very much, but any amount of mass, with sufficient velocity, could knock you back a few steps. Teela wasn't braced for an attack, and she sure wasn't expecting two skinny arms to be wrapped around her neck in a tight hug, or to have most of a hat slap into her face. She stumbled and would've gone down in the single most humiliating moment of her career (minus that time the Snakemen smashed her helmet underwater and she couldn't activate the emergency buoyancy device and He-Man had to drag her to the surface like a big dumb rock)...

...but two strong hands grabbed her arms, one on each side, and kept her feet steady and her dignity intact.

Well. As intact as it could be under an Orko hug.

Teela looked at Adam, on her right, and Adora, on her left, as they let go. Adam was amused, and Adora was annoyed. Teela was feeling a little bit of both, herself.

"We thought you were gone _forever_!" Orko wailed, squeezing her more. Between this and Ram-Man, she was going to need physical therapy. And speaking of Ram-Man: he and Mekaneck were standing off to the side and grinning broadly. Traitors.

"Um - I'm not," Teela managed. She made a _help_ gesture, and Adam came to her rescue.

"Okay, okay, give her some air, Orko," he said, tugging on the back of Orko's scarf. "How'd you get back to the castle so quickly, anyway? I thought you were still searching."

Orko released his death grip and floated backwards, bobbing up and down a little. "Well… I thought I'd check the ruins of Zalesia again… Turns out the Faceless One doesn't like juggling! Who knew, right?"

Adam covered his face with one hand, but Teela suspected it was so Orko (or anyone else in the corridor) wouldn't see him laugh.

Further revelations about the Faceless One's entertainment preferences were forestalled when King Randor said, "I'm afraid there's no more time to celebrate. Captain Adora, is it? We'll need a report immediately."

"What's going on?" Mekaneck asked.

"The end of the world," Adora said, with all of her usual charm.

Mekaneck looked startled. So did Queen Marlena. Ram-Man mostly looked confused.

"Is there a briefing room nearby, Your Majesty?" Adora asked the king. Polite words, brusque tone.

"Of course," King Randor said. He turned to Father and said, "Can you connect us to the other Masters' communicators? Everyone should hear this."

Father said, "We'll have to use the monitoring room," as if he'd already thought of it some minutes before. He probably had. A good soldier planned ahead.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to join you," the queen said to the king. She commonly sat in on meetings regarding civil matters, and it was normal for her to turn up at military meetings, too, but the Masters' business was the king's remit alone. "This sounds very dire - even more so than usual."

"Of course," King Randor said again. This time the obvious worry in his voice was tempered with equally obvious affection. He held out his arm, and Queen Marlena took it. They began walking, and everyone else trailed behind them.

Teela realized, a few yards down the corridor, that they had all paired off: the king and queen, Adam and Orko (now discussing the failed juggling trick), Mekaneck and Ram-Man, herself and Father.

Adora had no one.

This was home for Teela. But Adora would never have that luxury. The people she grew up with were evil and would probably try to kill her if she ever went back, and the Great Rebellion's reception would only be lukewarm, since half of them also probably wanted to kill her. And here on Eternia, where at least no one was going to murder her, Adora was a total stranger.

Teela slowed her steps to fall in beside the other girl, a few paces behind the rest of the group. Adora looked at her, eyebrow raised.

Teela shrugged.

Adora didn't say anything, but one corner of her mouth twitched, as if she was trying not to smile.

"So what did Evil-Lyn say about them?" Teela asked, pointing a thumb at the group ahead.

"Nothing complimentary about those two" - meaning Ram-Man and Mekaneck - "and nothing at all, really, about the queen. She left out your jester, too."

Teela tried to remember if Queen Marlena or Orko had ever had direct dealings with Evil-Lyn, and couldn't think of any. Then again, it might speak more to the witch's ego than her experiences; she'd view both of them, and particularly Orko, as far below her attention.

"The king? And my father?"

"Smart. Good soldiers. Dangerous to Hordak's plans."

Teela looked at Adam, who had pulled the two Masters into his conversation with Orko. All four of them were laughing.

Not dangerous to Hordak's plans; not a good soldier; but Teela had to admit that her father was right about the prince. Adam _was_ a natural diplomat, and as long as someone else - for instance, He-Man - was doing the fighting, he'd be a good king. People were drawn to him. Liked him. It was effortless.

She caught herself smiling a little, just watching. "What about Adam?"

There was a pause. Then Adora blew out a heavy breath and said, "I was supposed to kill him. And his parents."

The smile fell right off Teela's face, and she came to an abrupt halt. So did Adora. Everyone else kept walking, though Mekaneck ticked his neck up a few notches and turned it to keep them in his field of vision.

Teela kept her voice down despite the bright red tide of fury filling her vision. "You know you'd have to get through me first."

Adora said, matching her anger, "I'm not going to hurt anyone except Hordak."

They glared at each other for a few seconds. Long enough to make sure the other understood how serious she was.

Which was pretty serious: Adora's hand was resting on the grip of her blaster, and Teela's hand was resting on her staff.

"So are we good?" Adora asked, her voice still hard.

Fighting in the palace was okay if you were, say, being attacked by giant snakes, but was otherwise considered a no-no. Teela deliberately took her hand away from her weapon and said, "We're good."

Adora said, "You know, we can have a rematch whenever you want."

Teela snorted. "Maybe after the end of the world."

"Maybe," Adora said. She grinned then, wide and sudden and mischievous, and turned, blonde braid swinging, walking briskly to catch up with the others.

Teela hesitated for a moment before she followed, caught by the déjà vu of that unexpected smile.

If Adora didn't spend most of her time as an emotionless robot - if they'd been on Eternia all the while - Teela would've have noticed it before now.

Adora and Adam kind of looked alike.

Weird.


	16. let's get down to business

**.**

 **.**

 **.**

 **sixteen: let's get down to business**

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The monitoring room was for one or two Royal Guards, with seating options to match. But palace servants had a tendency to appear out of thin air whenever the queen needed something, and now there were a good half-dozen of them carrying chairs and a small table into the monitoring room even as the Masters' group arrived.

Teela was still lagging behind, trying to tell her brain it was imagining things. It made sense: she'd climbed a mountain after she'd fought Adora to a standstill, after she'd been up before dawn laying the groundwork for the harpy raid, _after_ only a miser's portion of sleep.

She was tired. Seeing things that weren't there. Obviously.

The thing she _should_ be worrying about was the impending debriefing. She'd have to tell everyone about her dream-visions, and based on her past history of magically-powered intell, that wasn't likely to go over well. At all.

The rest of the group had already gone into the monitoring room by the time Teela reached it - except Adam, who was leaning on the wall just outside the door. He made a show of checking a nonexistent timepiece as she walked up.

"Ha," she said. Not her best response. At least she could plead preoccupation.

"Thought maybe you'd been abducted again," he said.

"Sorry to disappoint you," she said, dry.

He grinned at her. Wide and sudden and mischievous - an uncanny echo of Adora's. Déjà vu all over again.

She suddenly remembered her first dream, when Veena had redirected her to Adam's room at the palace. He'd gone to stare out the window, and Adora's face had replaced his reflection in the glass.

Okay. So. _That_ brought up some questions.

But back to the more important - definitely more immediate - stuff.

She gave Adam's arm a quick tug. "Come on."

"What? Why?" he asked with a puzzled frown. He pointed a thumb at the door; inside, the servants had finished placing the furniture and everyone was seating themselves. "We gotta get in there."

"I need to ask you something first," she said in a low voice. "Something happened on Etheria, and - just come _on_. I don't want everyone to hear."

He glanced at the door of the monitoring room, then shrugged and followed her. They didn't go far; only down the corridor to the next doorway. Far enough.

Done with the furniture delivery, the servants filed out, but they headed the other way.

"So what happened?" Adam asked. "What's the question?"

She took a breath. It wasn't the same as the telepathy, she told herself. The dreams had been _real_. "The night of the party. Did you talk to Cringer about me? And about visiting the Sorceress in the morning?"

Adam looked more puzzled. "Yeah..."

Teela forged onwards. "And then later, when you were in Grayskull and you and the Sorceress were talking about looking for me, she thought she heard me, right? Telepathically?"

Now he went a little pale. "She said it was like you were right there in the castle. But - how -?"

"Because I kept having dreams, except I don't think any of them _were_ dreams. This lady with wings - her name was Veena -"

"Queen Veena?" he said, shocked all over again, interrupting her. "King Grayskull's wife?"

Oh. Well, it made sense that she'd be lurking around Castle Grayskull, then… but how did Adam know about her? _Throw it on the pile of mysteries for later_ , she told herself, too weary to be truly curious, and said, "Yeah. She kept popping up and telling me stuff. Showing me things on Eternia. Including Shadow Weaver."

Adam's face was gravely serious now. It wasn't an expression she was used to seeing on him, and it made him look quite a bit more like Adora, which she didn't need. "Teela, if you're having visions... this is big."

"Tell me about it," she said. "Anyway, I wanted - I mean, I don't have the best track record when it comes to this kind of stuff. You know. So I wanted to verify as much as I could."

He looked down the corridor toward the monitoring room, then at her again. Still serious, he said, "I'll always have your back, Teela. No matter what."

For some dumb reason that put a lump in her throat, and for some even dumber reason, she wanted to give him a hug.

She was tired. Obviously.

In any event, she'd done enough hugging today. You had to draw the line somewhere.

"Let's go," she said.

When they entered the monitoring room, King Randor and Queen Marlena were sitting on opposite sides of the table, with the rest of the group arrayed around them; Orko was hovering in a corner, fiddling with some piece of technology that he was inevitably going to break. Father had the communicator lines open and displayed on the main screen. Teela checked them automatically, going through a roll call and definitely not looking for He-Man.

Who wasn't there.

"We have a situation," her father was saying. "We already knew that Evil-Lyn has a new and powerful ally in Shadow Weaver. However, things are far worse than we thought. First, Teela, Adora, we'll bring you up to speed on events here."

Teela had barely lowered herself into a chair between Father and Mekaneck; now she sat straighter. "Should we wait for He-Man?"

"No," Father said, curt, then sighed. "We'll get to that."

She looked at the main screen again. Where _was_ he?

"Immediately after you fell into the portal," her father went on, "Shadow Weaver appeared in your place. She attacked He-Man. Cast some kind of mind-control spell."

"It's one of her favorites," Adora said, flat.

Father said, "Well, it nearly overpowered He-Man. The Sorceress was able to assist him and together they defeated the spell, but it was close. Too close."

"Wasn't _that_ close," Adam muttered under his breath. He was slouched in his chair, arms folded over his chest, scowling at nothing in particular. Teela was slightly taken aback by his attitude; hadn't he been the one scorning He-Man's efforts in her not-a-dream? Now he was sticking up for the warrior?

Adam needed to get it together. Really.

Her father shot Adam a look that made the prince sit up a little straighter. As well he should.

Pointedly, Father said, "We can't have Eternia's greatest champion controlled by the forces of evil."

"As powerful as He-Man is, the damage could be catastrophic," King Randor said gravely, in the understatement of the year.

"I'm sure he himself would be devastated once the spell was broken," Queen Marlena said. She glanced at Adam, whose scowl had given way to a more thoughtful expression.

Father concluded, "He-Man will be staying off the field until there's a solution to this problem."

It made sense. A powerful weapon was worse than useless to you if the other side had it. But - Teela had done some fighting without He-Man recently. A heavy hitter made battle much more efficient.

"Now, Teela, please explain what you learned on Etheria."

Teela stood up, hands clasped behind her back and chin up, the way she had learned to deliver a report as a cadet. For a moment she felt like she was back in Glimmer's hut, trying to summarize an entire life before the royal porridge arrived.

Teela gave a quick recap of her Etherian tour: Evil Horde, Great Rebellion, Force Captain Blondie switching sides, Weaver's plan to free Hordak. Then she took a deep breath and said, "In addition, I - I had, um, some visions while I was there."

Everyone had looked serious while she was reporting. Now they looked startled - except Adam, who gave her an encouraging nod, and Adora, who only raised an eyebrow.

And Father, who frowned.

Elders. _That_ did not bode well. Teela plunged onwards: "One of them showed Weaver and Evil-Lyn confronting Count Marzo. Weaver did something to his amulet; it turned black. After she put it on him, his eyes turned black, too."

"She can put her thrall spell into objects," Adora said to the group. "That way she doesn't have to maintain focus on it. It would take a lot of power to keep Marzo under control, but Weaver knew he would refuse to help them. She was prepared."

"Did your, ah, visions show anything else important?" the king asked Teela, who shook her head. "In that case, I think we need to hear more from you, Captain Adora."

Teela sat with some relief, and Adora stood. She delivered her report in precise, unemotional language that nonetheless made everyone in the room look as though hideous things had just crawled over their graves.

"Five hundred years ago, Hordak and his army were banished to the dimension of Despondos by King Grayskull," she said. "Doing so killed Grayskull and destroyed Hordak's physical body. It also created a seal or barrier of some kind. Hordak can only escape Despondos via a portal opened on Eternia, and the magic required is immense."

"Of course!" Orko said, zipping over to the table. Incongruously cheerful, he added, "A magician's dying spell is their most powerful."

Mekaneck asked, "Was Grayskull a magician?"

Orko scratched his head through his hat. "Umm… I'm not sure? But he turned Hordak's spell against him, so I guess he must've been."

Adam started to say something, but got another one of those looks from Father, and chose to close his mouth and sit back instead. Smart.

As if there'd been no interruption at all, Adora said, "Hordak has always been able to contact people here and on Etheria. He can also work magic through the barrier. That's how he created Skeletor and Shadow Weaver."

King Randor's expression sharpened. "Hordak created Skeletor."

Adora nodded. "After he was injured in battle. Acid to the face."

The acid had been meant for a much younger Captain Randor, which probably accounted for the furrowed brow and dark frown now. "Yes, we're all familiar with that part of the story."

"With Evil-Lyn's help, he fled to Hordak's sanctuary and begged him to save his life, which Hordak did. I don't know all the details."

Queen Marlena said, "Hordak expected something in return, I shouldn't wonder."

"He expected Skeletor to free him," Adora said. "Just as he expected Shadow Weaver to raise an army."

"Which she's done. But Skeletor destroyed Hordak's sanctuary," Father said, frowning, tapping one finger against the table. "And He-Man destroyed his other places of power."

"It was a setback," Adora said.

Monumental understatement, number two.

"Hey, how come Skeletor didn't free Hordak years ago?" Ram-Man asked. Typical Ram-Man: it might seemed like a dumb question on the surface - but it was actually a keen insight.

Why _hadn't_ Skeletor freed Hordak back then? For that matter, why hadn't Hordak gotten free centuries ago? Five hundred years should have been plenty of time for a powerful evil sorcerer to execute a prison break.

"We raised the Mystic Wall soon after," Father said. It was more of a question than a statement. Not typical; it meant he hadn't already worked out the answer.

"All Hordak's places of power were in the Dark Hemisphere," Adam countered, quickly enough to make Teela look at him askance. Considering that Adam had been involved in exactly none of those fights, he sure seemed to have a solid grasp of their geography. "Skeletor would have been able to access them, easy."

"Perhaps Hordak was waiting for the preparations on Etheria to be complete," the queen said.

"Shadow Weaver and the Troopers are to assist Hordak's forces," Adora said, "but their numbers have never been great enough to do more than that, especially if they're leaving enough men behind to hold the Etherian garrisons."

"It seems obvious that Hordak has been waiting for something," the king said. "I worry that not knowing what could cost us dearly."

Those seated at the table looked at each other for a long moment, uniformly grim. Even Orko looked disheartened, which was a feat when your face wasn't visible.

Adora, of course, had on the same blank mask that she always did. She might have been a statue.

Finally, the king sighed and said, "Let's hear the rest, please."

"Using the sanctuary," Adora said, "Skeletor could have opened a portal by himself. Now, it will take at least three magicians with significant power."

"Weaver, Evil-Lyn and Marzo," Mekaneck said, ticking them off on his fingers.

"Well, that ain't great," Ram-Man said. Boy, this war council was an understatement party.

Father asked, "Where will they open the portal?"

Adora shook her head. "Only Hordak knows that."

So that avenue was closed.

Father and King Randor started questioning Adora about Hordak's army - how many men, their armor, weapons, and so forth. It was critical information, but Teela found her attention drifting away from it…

...and towards the two fair-haired people in the room, one sitting, one standing. It was her first chance to really observe them. Compare them.

Adam and Adora didn't _actually_ look alike, she told herself. Feature by feature, the only thing they shared were bright blue eyes. Adora's hair was darker, Adam's jaw more square… a hundred little points of difference.

They didn't act alike, either. Take something as basic as sitting, for example. Adam slouched. He slumped. He sprawled. All chairs were potential nap zones, and he used them accordingly. Even right now he was lounging. Meanwhile, Adora'd sat as though she anticipated someone needing to use her spine as a flagpole in the next two seconds. She stood that way, too.

And yet. There was _something_.

Maybe… cousins?

But then how had Adora gotten to Etheria? It had taken some major spellwork to get Teela there. She couldn't see Evil-Lyn working quite so hard to send over a kid… what, like, sixteen years ago?

And did Adam even _have_ cousins? She'd have to check, but she thought if he did, then they were all accounted for. A missing royal cousin would be noticed, that was for sure.

Well, they couldn't be brother and sister. She was absolutely certain about _that_. Adam was, famously, an only child. The whole planet knew it; in fact, every few years people started grumbling about it all over again, because King Randor had only named Adam in his Act of Succession and refused to add anyone else. _"It invites dissension,"_ he'd always claimed, while the complainers had always countered that multiple heirs provided more security.

Teela could see both sides. Adam was coming to the throne uncontested - but in a worst-case scenario, where the king, queen, and prince died at the same time, there would be chaos. Total, bloody chaos.

Icy fingers dragged along her spine. _I was supposed to kill him. And his parents_.

So maybe Adam _was_ critical to Hordak's plans after all.

She glanced at Queen Marlena and caught the queen looking at her. As always, the queen's expression was mild, but there was an undercurrent lurking right below the placid exterior. Maybe disapproval for the way Teela was zoning out during an important briefing.

She sat a little straighter and put her focus back where it belonged, trying to ignore the embarrassed flush that she could feel rising to her cheeks.

Elders. She'd thought she was done feeling like a naughty student when she left the Academy, but the queen had gotten her two times in the last week.

"We need a strategy," King Randor was saying. "Particularly since He-Man will not be available. I'll open the floor to ideas. Nothing is too crazy at this point."

The Masters who were attending the meeting via communicator had been silent through Teela's and Adora's reports; now they began contributing in earnest. Teela listened to all of them, even though the communicator lines got crackly and distorted, particularly when a lot of people were talking. She had some ideas of her own that she wanted to put forward right away, but this was one occasion when she felt her youth and relative inexperience more keenly. Simply put, it was time to shut up and let the veterans hash things out.

Adora was also staying quiet. In fact, she'd taken a seat again. Teela thought she'd probably have better ideas than just about anyone else, since she knew the principal players. Maybe she was tired, too.

Or she was waiting to swoop in at the last moment and deliver a metaphorical killing blow.

Teela knew which scenario she considered more likely.

Adam stood. "I have an idea," he said to the room at large, but no one was paying attention.

Except Teela, who put two fingers to her mouth and whistled, loud and piercing, cutting through the discussion like a sword.

Queen Marlena looked at her again. More alarmingly, so did Father, with the same quelling expression he'd used on Adam.

Teela felt the embarrassed flush rising higher and crossed her arms over her chest in defense. So what? She could have Adam's back, too. No matter what.

Adam gave her a quick thank-you wink even as he cleared his throat and repeated, "I have an idea. It's, ah - it's definitely a crazy one."

"Go ahead, son," King Randor said, voice warm.

Adam took a breath. "I hate to say it, but… Skeletor."

Well. No one was looking at _her_ anymore, Teela noticed. They were all staring at their prince, who had lost his mind.

Father said, in flat amazement, "You think we should team up with Skeletor."

Adam held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I know, I know, but he doesn't want Hordak here either - and he's more powerful than Evil-Lyn and Marzo, maybe Weaver too. If He-Man can't help us, Skeletor might be our best option." He paused, made a face, and added, "I can't believe I just said that."

"Skeletor," King Randor repeated, as if that was the only word he'd heard.

"Why does he hate Hordak anyway?" Ram-Man asked, delivering another excellent insight.

"Can't stand the competition," Mekaneck said with a half-grin.

"It's more than that," Adora said. "Hordak's body is gone. That doesn't matter in Despondos - it's outside space and time. But to survive here, he'll need a host. There are exactly two people on Eternia whose bodies have been altered by Hordak's magic."

"Shadow Weaver and Skeletor," Teela said. "And Hordak's only angry with one of them."

"Skeletor must have figured it out already," Father said. " _That's_ why he destroyed the sanctuary. If Hordak returns to Eternia, then Skeletor will, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist."

"Which means he'll be _really_ motivated to help us," Adam said.

"Adam is right," the king said. He ran his hand over his beard and sighed. "As much as it pains me to admit it, Skeletor _is_ powerful, and we _do_ need the help. I'll go to Snake Mountain immediately, and -"

"No, Sire," Father said, swift and firm, cutting the king off. "He'll view any approach by you as an attack."

"So I'll go," Adam said.

This time, every adult in the room said, " _No!_ " at the same time.

Unfazed, Adam rolled his eyes. "C'mon, I'll take Teela with me. She won't let anything happen."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but no way," Teela said. "He'll just kidnap you. Again."

Adam gave her a dirty look. She returned it.

"I'll go too," Adora said. "I can verify your story as well as help Captain Teela protect you, Prince Adam."

Before anyone could throw out any more offers to help or objections, Father stepped in. "Adam, Teela, Adora, _and I_ will go. I can remain out of sight while the three of you make the approach. Skeletor will be curious rather than alarmed to see you. And if he _does_ attempt to grab Adam, the four of us should be able to effect an escape."

"We'll go too," Mekaneck said, pointing a thumb at Ram-Man. "We can stay farther back and come in if things get ugly."

Unexpectedly, the queen said, "It's a good plan, Duncan. I trust you to keep Adam safe."

"Thank you, Majesty."

Realizing that he'd won, Adam put his hands on his hips and grinned at everyone in the room.

Teela wondered if she was the only person who saw the unease beneath that confident, brash smile.

"Well," Adam said, "looks like my diplomatic tour is starting at Snake Mountain."


	17. diplomatic, part deux

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 **seventeen: diplomatic, part deux**

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When you were faced with certain doom, Teela had always believed, the best option was to meet it head-on.

Which was why she didn't argue when Father ordered her to sit beside him in the Wind Raider. Or when he likewise sent Adora to the back seat while Adam was dispatched to ride with Mekaneck and Ram-Man.

Or when he flew in silence until they had left the palace well behind.

In fact, by the time he said, "Visions," Teela was more than ready for the fight.

"Only two," she said immediately. She held up a hand to ward off any disagreements. "And I know what you're thinking, Father, but this time it's not a trap. The visions didn't start until I was on Etheria. Queen Veena showed me -"

Father cut her off, demanding, "Queen Veena?"

"King Grayskull's wife," Teela said.

"And the first Sorceress," Father said. "I know of her. But how do you know it was her?"

Aha! One small mystery solved. _That's_ why Veena had reminded her of the Sorceress so strongly. Wings must come with the job.

"Grayskull called her by name, in my first vision. And Adam said she was the queen when I told him," she said - belatedly realizing it was going to win her no points with her father that Adam had been better informed, however briefly. "How did _he_ know about her?"

"No doubt it was part of his royal studies. Family history. He's a direct descendent of King Grayskull."

Teela had been schooled alongside the crown prince for most of her childhood, and she didn't remember any history lessons about King Grayskull or his spooky old castle. But maybe that had been covered after she'd gone off to the Academy.

"That's why the Council of Elders chose Randor to be king," Adora said from the backseat, showing off her Horde knowledge. "He has the bloodright."

Father acknowledged that with a grunt. "The Council never elaborated on their choice, but yes, that's what many suspected."

Teela glanced over her shoulder at Adora, who gave her a conspiratorial wink. Teela smiled back even though she knew it was hopeless. Steering Father off-topic never worked, but she appreciated the effort.

"Now tell me about these visions. I want exact details," Father ordered.

Nope. Never worked.

Teela gave him the exact details, beginning with the first vision of Grayskull and Veena outside the castle and the fog that had so suddenly become Adam's palace bedroom - although she found herself curiously reluctant to mention the part about his reflection. Maybe because Adora was right there. Kind of awkward.

At any event, she skipped over it, then felt like an idiot for doing so. A little guilty, too. She retold the second dream scrupulously as a result, including the part where Veena had mentioned "all the children of Grayskull."

The whole thing had made Father narrow his eyes and furrow his brow, but the last bit earned a swift head turn and a sharp, " _All_ the children? You're certain that's what she said?"

Teela folded her arms over her chest, feeling defensive despite herself. "So did the guardian of the Crystal Castle."

"Hmm," Father said. He lapsed into silence again.

Teela yawned, then checked to see if Adora had noticed. She hadn't; the other girl had gotten as comfortable as you could in the back of a Wind Raider, and was either asleep or doing a great job of faking it. Most soldiers could fall asleep on command, regardless of circumstances; you had to get your rest when and where you could, with battle on the horizon. And surely Adora was as tired as she was.

She looked at Father. Still silent.

Well. No one needed to give _her_ an engraved invitation. She wedged herself into the least uncomfortable position she could find, shut her eyes, and mentally crossed her fingers.

Maybe now that she was back on Eternia, Veena would leave her alone.

.

.

.

Teela came awake slowly. The first thing she thought was, _Thank the Elders, no visions_. The second thing was, _Who is Father talking to?_

Because she could hear the familiar rumble of his voice, talking to someone, although most of the words were inaudible. Either he was some distance away from her now-really-uncomfortable spot in the (landed) Wind Raider, or he was keeping his volume down. Or both.

She opened her eyes took in the scene. Sand dunes, bruised purple sky, faint smell of sulfur in every breath: definitely the Dark Hemisphere. Mek and Rammie had landed their Raider nearby, and they were talking to Adora. Telling her how to operate the controls, it looked like. Turning the other way showed Father and Adam, standing atop a nearby dune and having an un-fun conversation, to judge by their body language.

Probably Father was lecturing Adam about not getting kidnapped by Skeletor - again.

She'd like to hear _that_. In the meantime… Teela was still wedged in the same position, and she needed to stretch her muscles out if she wanted to be any use in a fight. But before she could sit up, the wind shifted and a fragment of conversation came clearly to her:

"...too much like the telepathy," Father said. "You may need to keep your distance this time as well."

She froze. _What?_

"Come on," came the response. Flippant. "What's the worst that could happen? She finds out?"

Adam had never visited her when she'd been laid up in bed, recovering from her injuries. All the Masters in residence had dropped by, most of them several times a day, Father less than that, but then he was a busy man and she hadn't expected it.

She had, however, been looking forward to spending some time with Adam, maybe playing cards or other games as they had when they were younger and got sick. But he'd never even stuck his head in the door.

Hurt feelings had calcified into resentment long before the Sorceress' blood transfusion had worn off.

And now -

Was _Father_ the one who'd told Adam not to visit her?

Confusion and anger zipped along her nerves and made her pulse quicken.

"This isn't a situation you can take lightly, Adam," Father said sternly.

"I'm not," Adam said, with such sudden, cold seriousness that Teela nearly sat up anyway. "Why _can't_ she know? She -"

He cut off mid-sentence, or rather, Father cut him off. There was no more talking, and Teela knew her eavesdropping opportunity was over.

She feigned waking up with a big, theatrical stretch and yawn, then hopped down onto the loose sand. Father and Adam turned to face her as she climbed the dune.

Father raised an eyebrow and said, "Any visions this time?"

"Nope," Teela said, and forced a smile. _Get a grip_ , she told herself, trying to stuff the anger back into its box. For one thing, maybe she'd been imagining the conversation. Or she'd misheard. There could be a hundred innocent ways to explain it. All of them made more sense than her father telling her best friend to stay away from her when she was injured.

Father smiled back; Adam made an attempt, but the scowl he was already wearing kind of undermined it.

She looked out across the desolate landscape, where the dunes gave way to lava fields and crumbling, rocky outcrops. In the far distance you could make out the tall spire shape of Snake Mountain - perpetually spitting a river of fire against the perpetually dark sky.

"I'll be with Ram-Man and Mekaneck for the final approach," Father told her. "They'll drop me in a concealed position and retreat to their own while the three of you land at the front door, so to speak."

Teela nodded, and they all made their way back down the dune. Everyone split up as planned, and the three teens waited in their Wind Raider for a few minutes to give the others a head start.

Adora was silent as usual, Adam was still brooding, and Teela was trying not to think about a lot of things.

So it was a fun few minutes.

Finally Adam heaved a big sigh, powered up the Wind Raider, and said, determinedly chipper, "All right, let's go invite Skeletor to the party."

"I see why he'd say yes," Teela said as they flew, "but I'm having a hard time picturing the Masters actually working with Skeletor." She'd taken the backseat this time, so she had to lean forward to be heard over the wind.

"You're working with _me_ ," Adora said.

"Yeah, but you're on our side now. And you never called yourself 'The Overlord of Evil'," Adam pointed out, rolling his eyes.

" 'Horde Force Captain' isn't much better," Adora said. Arms crossed. Jaw tight.

Teela tapped her on the shoulder. "How about 'Captain of the Eternian Royal Guard'?"

Adora turned around and stared, incredulous.

"You could pass all the tests easily," Teela said, finding herself more and more pleased with the idea as she talked. Right now she was the only female captain; it would be nice to have a girl her own age in the same rank. Not to mention the damage they could do to the bad guys as a team. "With a royal sponsor, you could take them right away."

"Yeah!" Adam said. He seemed pleased too; the last of the brooding look had left him, and he grinned at Adora - a real, true grin. "I mean, I'd sponsor you just for kicking Teela's butt."

Teela cuffed the back of his head. Lightly. He was piloting, after all. Over his indignant "Ow!" she said, "She did _not_ kick my butt. _I_ won that fight."

Adora scoffed. "I let you."

"We can have a rematch any time, you know," Teela said.

The two girls grinned at each other, and then the Raider was setting down on the flat, rock-strewn ground in front of Snake Mountain.

There were many ways into the mountain, but this was the most direct approach, and it was undoubtedly being monitored by one of Tri-Klops' doomseekers or even a minion on guard duty.

Teela, Adam, and Adora jumped down from the Wind Raider and stood around, trying to look casual and non-threatening. Teela's fingers itched for her staff, but she resisted the urge. This was a diplomatic trip. Waving weapons around was definitely not diplomatic.

A shadow darkened one of the lava-lit tunnels at the base of the mountain. After a tense second, the dark shape resolved into the staff and headpiece of Evil-Lyn, who strode forward until she was halfway between the three of them and the mountain.

Teela exchanged a quick, uneasy glance with Adam. Evil-Lyn was _not_ on Skeletor's team. Unless she was playing both sides? Continuing to feign allegiance to Bonehead while secretly working for Hordak?

Oh, no, that would be _hugely_ out of character for the witch. Just absolutely impossible.

Teela was really looking forward to Skeletor blasting Evil-Lyn with his Havoc Staff.

"Well, well," Evil-Lyn drawled, her voice rich with mocking as always. "Aren't you brats out past your bedtime? And all alone? Tsk, tsk. Don't you know how _dangerous_ Snake Mountain can be?"

Her eyes slid over Teela and Adora, and her gaze narrowed, but she didn't say anything to them. Teela glared right back at her. _I'm not afraid of you_ , she wanted to tell her, along with, _You tried to get rid of me and failed, so who's the dummy now_?

Adam drew himself up straight and put some royalty into his voice: "Let us pass, Evil-Lyn. We've come to speak with Skeletor."

" _Have_ you," Evil-Lyn said, smirking. "My. This sounds _terribly_ important." She turned and cupped a hand to her mouth, calling, "Oh, _Skeletor_ -! You have visitors!"

Teela didn't need to be the smartest person on Eternia to know that nothing good was going to happen next. Evil-Lyn's tone was all wrong. The whole thing was all wrong.

She got that same uneasy ripple down her spine that she had right before Skydancer Mountain had dropped away beneath her feet. Except this time it was much worse.

Her snake staff was in her hands and expanded before Skeletor emerged from the tunnel. Before he walked forward to stand not in front of Evil-Lyn, not beside her, but just behind her. Before it became obvious that someone had affixed a complicated metal artifact to the bone-and-leather crosspiece over his chest. Before the glowing, magical symbols on the metal could be recognized as like those on Horde manacles.

Before he lifted his hooded skull and showed them eyes that blazed black, not red.

"We're too late!" Adora exclaimed in alarm, spinning around, blaster in hand, looking for something. Someone.

Like the shadowy figure who appeared on the ridge behind them, green arms outstretched, her red-and-black robes billowing in the hot desert wind.

Or maybe Count Marzo, standing behind Shadow Weaver, magic crackling around his hands.

Or maybe Skeletor's warriors, who emerged from the rocks to make a ragged circle around them. Beast Man, Tri-Klops, Trap Jaw, Two Bad, Stinkor, Whiplash, Clawful…

Adam drew his sword. He and Teela fell naturally into a back-to-back formation, leaving room for Adora, who took her place in the triad just as naturally. Weapons out. Weapons ready.

This was not good. Assuming Adam didn't flake out, the three of them could probably defend against the warriors long enough to escape - but not against the four magicians, each one of whom had gone toe-to-toe with He-Man and walked away.

Evil-Lyn threw back her head and began to laugh.


	18. don't worry, it gets worse

**eighteen: don't worry, it gets worse**

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 **Note:** I apologize for the delay, but finishing this chapter has been the last thing on my mind. One of my coworkers was murdered last week, along with her daughter. They were wonderful, kind people who did nothing to deserve such a horrible ending. Please get help right away if you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence.

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Evil-Lyn's laughter was evil, of course, but not the kind of gleeful, mad cackle her erstwhile boss had always used; instead, her laugh was low and throaty and designed to mock. It was the laugh of someone who had just humiliated you in front of all your peers and who was enjoying the show. It was a laugh that intended to set your teeth on edge and your blood to boiling.

There had been a girl at court, when Teela was about twelve or so, who had delighted in making fun of her. She'd deployed exactly that same kind of laugh, and then as now, Teela had no defense against it. You couldn't dodge a laugh. You couldn't block it. You couldn't even really counterattack it. All you could do was stand there and seethe.

Evil-Lyn let her laughter trail off after a few moments. She stepped forward and posed, hip cocked to one side, hand resting delicately on it. Equal parts triumph and malice, she said, "Oh, don't look so pitiful, children. We aren't going to kill you… _yet_."

Teela knew that whatever her expression looked like, "pitiful" was not the word for it. Adora's face was best described as "murderous", and Adam -

\- Adam looked like a prince.

A prince whose ancestor had handed Hordak his head, and who thought he could do the same.

"He-Man and the Masters know your plan," Adam declared. Standing straight. Sword ready. Voice ringing. Blue eyes blazing. "No matter what you do to us, they're going to stop you!"

Teela stared at him. Never mind that she needed to somehow coordinate their escape with Father (who was certainly nearby, ready to swoop in), while somehow making sure Adam stayed uninjured in the process… there was _something_ tugging at her memory.

Adam didn't look like Adora right now. No. He looked like… he looked exactly like -

The minions surrounding the three of them started to laugh, and the thought vanished as she brought her staff up reflexively.

"I'd like to see 'em try!" Beast Man said, snorting and snuffling. "Not even _Skeletor_ could -"

"No one _asked_ you, oaf," Evil-Lyn snapped, cutting him off. Purple magic flared in her eyes and around her fingers, and Beast Man subsided with a growl, lips lifted over his fangs.

So he wasn't under Weaver's control. Teela did a quick scan; none of Skeletor's crew had the black eyes and blank faces that meant they had been thralled. Interesting. Maybe it had been unnecessary. Maybe it would have been too costly in terms of time or magic or both.

She turned her head, trying to see Shadow Weaver, who was still occupying the high ground with the very much thralled Count Marzo.

No movement, aside from the red-and-black robes blowing in the hot night air.

Danger buzzed up and down Teela's nerve endings nonetheless.

" _As_ I was saying," Evil-Lyn said. Her scowl smoothed into back into smugness as she shifted her attention from Beast Man to Adam and Teela. "Eternia's cowardly prince and his dumb muscle will be useful bargaining chips."

"I'm not as dumb as you are," Teela countered. " _You_ think Hordak's going to be grateful and give you a kingdom of your own, don't you? Ha!"

It was just a guess, but a good one, she thought, and judging by the way the witch's eyes narrowed, she was on the right track.

At Teela's shoulder, Adora added, "He doesn't like traitors."

"You should know, shouldn't you," Evil-Lyn purred, ignoring Teela altogether. " _Force Captain_ Adora."

Adora said nothing.

Evil-Lyn glanced up, over their heads, no doubt at Shadow Weaver. It was the most momentary of distractions.

In that fraction of a second, Adora swung her blaster, pointing the weapon at Evil-Lyn - and fired.

If she'd been aiming at the witch's head, it was a failure, because the blast caught her high on the left shoulder. The impact knocked her off her feet, and she landed hard, crying out and clutching at the seared flesh.

And then it was _on_.

Adora spun, firing rapidly but precisely at the warriors. Teela was rushed by Trap-Jaw before she could push Adam behind her, and then she was focused on not getting squished by, say, a giant hand-clamp.

She hoped Adam was running.

Cannon fire strafed down from above, peppering the warriors and giving her a chance to bring her staff across Trap-Jaw's oversize jaw, dislocating it.

"Hey!" he yelled indignantly. Well. He tried to.

Teela used her staff as a lever and her hip as a fulcrum and flipped Trap-Jaw, always a fun move. He landed with a satisfying _Oof!_ and she turned to greet the newcomer, calling out, "Father!"

Father released a volley of missiles that sent Two Bad and Stinkor scrambling for cover. "This way!" he ordered, making a sharp gesture.

There was a path through the rocks and a Wind Raider just visible at the far end of it. Perfect.

Teela looked around for Adam, who was… fighting Tri-Klops? And not doing a bad job. In fact, as she watched, he feinted with his sword, then came in fast with an elbow to Tri-Klops' visor. The lens cracked, and the casing crackled with electricity as something misfired. Tri-Klops dropped his own sword to grab at his damaged eyepiece, and Adam whirled around to face the next opponent.

Um. Okay. Since when -?

Something moved through the air, fast enough to whistle, and Teela leaped up just in time to avoid Whiplash's tail. He and Clawful loomed over her, and for a beat her eyes darted between the two as her brain scrambled to come up with a strategy.

And then running footfalls shook the ground and the two goons looked to their left, eyes widening in alarm, right before Ram-Man plowed into them. They went flying.

"Get outta here!" Ram-Man said to her, not unkindly.

Right. Good plan. Teela caught Adam by the arm and pulled. "Come on!" she shouted at Adora, who immediately left off firing and followed them at a run.

Father, Ram-Man, and Mekaneck were covering their escape, fighting the goons that had gotten back up. Of more concern were the magicians, none of whom had lifted a finger so far. Evil-Lyn was down, of course, and Skeletor and Count Marzo were puppets waiting for a command, but why wasn't Shadow Weaver doing anything?

They were a few yards from the Wind Raider when that question was answered.

Shadow Weaver appeared - or rather, shadows boiled up from the ground and solidified into the Horde sorceress. She stood there, arms outstretched, in between them and the Wind Raider.

Teela, Adam, and Adora came to a screeching halt.

"Adora," Weaver rasped. Her voice was low, and as gentle as rotting lungs could make it.

Adora shot her. She shot _at_ her, anyway. The blaster bolt passed through Weaver harmlessly and pinged against the side of the Wind Raider.

"I knew… you would… find your way… to us," Weaver said. Her face was hidden in the dark recess of her hood, but the smile was unmistakable. "So clever. So capable."

"Leave her alone!" Adam yelled. He stepped in front of Adora, sword brandished, and Teela mirrored the action with her staff.

"You'll have to get through us first," she warned Shadow Weaver. Elders knew it would probably be the world's shortest fight, but she was determined to protect the other girl.

Weaver made a low hissing sound, but didn't otherwise respond to their comments. Instead, she pointed a clawed hand at Adora. "Lord Hordak… has need of you."

Adora gave a scream - a roar - full of anger and desperation. She fired the blaster twice more, to absolutely zero effect. Then she threw the weapon at Weaver. Also to zero effect.

Black energy began to gather around Shadow Weaver's hands. Teela knew what was coming; she'd seen it before, in her vision of Count Marzo's capture. She grabbed Adora's arm to pull her out of the way.

Stupid move. Just like laughter, you couldn't dodge magic that was aiming at _you_. It followed.

And to double the stupidity, Teela was still holding on to Adora when the spell struck.

It wasn't like being electrocuted. It was like falling unexpectedly into deep water in the middle of the night.

Dark. Cold. No way to find up or down.

 _I'm inside the spell_ , Teela thought. Was that even possible? She had no idea. It felt true, though.

Wherever she was, she was stuck fast: a bug in icy, black amber. The only light came from her body, which was glowing a faint whitish color.

And - there was another light. Pale gold. Flickering. Off to the side.

The darkness didn't want her to turn her head. She snarled and, with a huge effort, managed a fraction of an inch.

Enough to see that the pale gold light was radiating from Adora, and it was flickering because the darkness was wrapping greedy tendrils around her, trying to swallow her whole.

Adora was fighting against the tendrils with her entire being - twisting, kicking, ripping, flailing. Her mouth was open and she was obviously screaming, but Teela couldn't hear anything.

In the middle of her struggle, her blue eyes looked around and caught on Teela.

Fear.

Teela remembered sitting on a mountainside, watching that expression paint itself across the other girl's face. She knew that Adora was terrified of being controlled again, of losing herself, of being forced to do evil.

Adora was fighting for more than her life. She was fighting for her soul.

If only this was as simple as throwing a rope.

Though come to think of it - the other girl wasn't that far away. _I could reach her with my staff_ , Teela thought, trying - and failing - to make a fist. _I could pull her free._

The darkness seemed to know what she was planning, and pulled harder against her. But Teela had had just about enough of cold black ink telling her what to do. She strained to move her arm.

 _Come on!_ she thought. _Stupid darkness - like it or not, I'm getting my staff!_

And then her snake staff was somehow in her hand, and suddenly the faint glow coming off of her body got a lot brighter, and it changed from whitish to green.

Not a sickly green, like Weaver's skin. This green was the color of summer sun on grass, of trees in the deep woods. It was strong. It meant _life_.

Just as suddenly, Teela could move. The darkness slithered away from her as though her new green glow was scorching it, leaving her floating in gray fog.

"Adora!" she yelled. It echoed.

The tendrils had almost completely engulfed Adora; at her shout, the other girl rallied, wrenching one arm loose and stretching out her hand.

Teela swung her staff through the darkness; it hissed like venting steam and fled from the staff's arcing path. When Adora's searching fingers closed around the snake-head, the darkness positively screamed.

Gold light flared.

Adora got her other arm free and clutched the staff with both hands.

It was working. Teela was going to pull her out of the spell. She was going to save her friend -

 _NO!_

The voice was raspy. Rusty. Furious.

Shadow Weaver's image appeared before Teela, hundreds of times larger than life size, the black of her robes blending into the sea of darkness so that only the red showed - and her malevolent, glowing eyes.

Teela recoiled, but she kept hold of her staff, and she kept dragging Adora, inch by inch, out of danger. "You can't have her!" she yelled at Weaver.

 _Little fool!_ came the response, along with a tidal wave of darkness that roared over Teela and left her numb and gasping. Her green glow was unsteady. Wobbling. Weak.

But she kept hold of her staff.

Seeing that, the witch made an incoherent sound of rage. One enormous, clawed hand reached out and snapped the staff in two, as though it were a twig.

The green glow vanished. Like turning off a light.

Teela drew a deep, shuddering breath and realized she was lying on the dirt next to Adora, who was being overtaken by the black energy of the spell.

She tried to rise, but her arms and legs were having trouble following orders, and she mostly just flopped around on the ground. And then Adam was there, hauling her up, getting his shoulders and back under her arm, supporting her weight.

"We gotta go," he said. Together they started a stumbling half-jog.

Away from the person who needed them most. Teela twisted around, trying to see over her shoulder. "Adora -"

"It's too late." Adam dragged her onward, towards the Wind Raider.

"No," Teela said, struggling to disentangle herself. Her knees immediately buckled when she tried to walk on her own, and Adam got her up again. "We have to - to help her -"

"I can't -" He broke off with a frustrated snarl. "We have to go."

Father reached them then, scooped her up like a baby, and deposited her in the back of the Wind Raider.

Adam jumped in behind the controls and they lifted off immediately. Teela craned her neck, not wanting to leave.

Because that was her friend down there, standing like a blank-faced statue while Shadow Weaver laid a cruel hand along the side of her face. Laughing an awful, wheezing laugh, air scraping across disintegrating lungs.

That was her friend, dragged down into darkness again.

Abandoned. Again.

"Go back! We can't leave her!" she said to Father, angry. The wind blew tiny grains of sand into her face; it stung and burned, and that was why her eyes were watering. That was why everything was getting fuzzy all of a sudden. She blinked hard.

 _Adora!_

That hadn't been out loud. She shook her head, still blinking. Still fuzzy. And now her vision was going kind of… kind of dim...

 _Adora!_

Teela blinked again, and she was standing at the foot of a large, stepped dais. Identical stone faces, mouths open in silent snarls, looked down from the circular walls. Everything glowed with a deep, bloody light.

The red room, Teela realized. The one in the Fright Zone.

So this was another vision. Oh joy.

Shadow Weaver stood a few paces away. Hands by her sides. Waiting.

And not just a vision, but a memory, since Shadow Weaver was definitely not in the Fright Zone right now.

A portal suddenly swirled open, black and purple and red, and a young woman in a plain, sensible dress and headscarf came staggering out. She fell to one knee, but kept hold of the blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms.

Weaver glided forward. "The disorientation… will pass. What is… the child's name?"

The young woman looked around wildly, making little panicked gasping noises as she took in her surroundings. "Where - the queen - where is -"

"Answer me," Weaver hissed.

The young woman flinched, clutching the bundle more tightly. It hiccuped and started to cry, the noise thin and high.

A baby. She was holding a baby.

Teela already knew how awful Shadow Weaver was, but this was a new low.

The young woman shushed the baby, joggling it against her shoulder, one hand cupping the back of its small head protectively. Its cries subsided into whimpers, then silence. The action seemed to give the baby's caregiver new courage. Her chin came up, and she got to her feet. "Her name is Princess Adora."

Princess.

 _Princess Adora_.

Shadow Weaver hissed again, this time, it seemed, in pleasure. "You… now serve… Lord Hordak. You will care… for the child. He has… great plans… for her."

The caregiver stepped back. "I serve the rightful king and queen of Eternia."

That awful laugh. "But you… are not… on Eternia any longer."

Fear flickered over the caregiver's face, but she held firm. "Then I serve my princess."

Weaver raised her hand, black energy crackling around it. Then she paused. Perhaps she was figuring out - like Teela was - that if she thralled the caregiver, she'd have to tell the young woman what to do, and there was no way Shadow Weaver knew anything about raising a baby.

"It is… all the same," she rasped out. Then, abruptly, her head cocked to one side as though she was hearing something, and she began to turn towards where Teela was standing.

The baby cried.

And Teela was back in the Wind Raider, and a whole lot of things made sense.

"Adora!" she said.

"It's a great loss, but we didn't have much choice," Father said behind the controls. The muscle in his jaw jumped. "Shadow Weaver would have attacked us next. That wasn't a battle we could have won."

Teela shook her head, felt a little dizzy, and decided she should probably hold on to the side of the vehicle for a minute. She automatically scanned the horizon as she did so, and caught sight of Mekaneck and Ram-Man in the other Wind Raider nearby. Judging by the terrain, they were almost out of the Dark Hemisphere, which meant she'd been unconscious for a while. "No, that's not - Listen! _Adora_ is what Hordak was waiting for."

Both Father and Adam said, "What?"

"She's our age, right?" Teela said, gesturing to herself and Adam. "And it was about sixteen years ago that the Horde starting conquering Etheria. The same time Hordak saved Skeletor. But why wait so many years since? Because Hordak wants Adora to lead his troops."

Father never liked a hypothesis without evidence. "Why?"

"She told me -" Teela hesitated, feeling like she was betraying a confidence, then plunged ahead "- she was supposed to kill the royal family. But I think she _is_ the royal family. Princess Adora."

Adam said " _What?_ " at the same time Father said, flatly, "That's not possible."

Teela folded her arms over her chest. "Not according to the vision I just had."

"But that would make her, what, my twin sister? Someone would've noticed if she'd disappeared. For sure Father and Mother would have said something." Adam's face was scrunched up in confusion and indignance. "I mean, you don't just forget your kid existed."

"I can't explain that," Teela said. "But I know what I heard. She's a princess of Eternia."

"And with the rest of the royal family gone, she would have a legitimate claim to the throne. Hordak could rule Eternia through her." Father held up one hand to forestall any celebrations from Teela. "I'm not entirely certain that I believe all of this. But it does explain why Hordak waited over sixteen years to open the portal to Despondos - as well as why Shadow Weaver allowed five of us to escape that trap."

"They only wanted Adora," Adam said. He punched one hand into the other, frustrated. "And we let them take her. Now Hordak's got all the cards."

"We need to -" Father began, but he was cut off by a telepathic voice that rang clear and true in everyone's minds at the same moment. A soft voice that echoed, like the rustle of feathers in a cavernous stone hall.

 _Masters! You must come to Castle Grayskull immediately!_


	19. bearing gifts

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 **nineteen: bearing gifts**

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An SOS from the Sorceress? This just kept getting better.

Adam groaned and smacked himself on the forehead. "Of course! I should've known."

Father was busy adjusting the Wind Raider's course while coordinating with Ram-Man and Mekaneck via communicator, so it fell to Teela to ask, "Known what?"

" 'A magician's dying spell is their most powerful'," Adam explained, scowling. "That's what Orko said, right? Hordak's not _dead_ , exactly, but his body was destroyed outside Castle Grayskull. Practically on its doorstep."

Teela remembered her vision of Shadow Weaver putting the whammy on Count Marzo. _All his places of power have been destroyed_ , he'd snarled, and she'd wheezed _That is not true_. Her stomach sank further. "It's his last place of power."

"Looks like we'll need He-Man after all!" Adam said to Father.

" _No_ ," Father said.

Adam slouched down, scowling even harder.

Teela didn't have time to puzzle over this latest weirdness. She knew Father would have a battle plan in place by the time they reached the castle, but she wanted to see how much she could predict. And it never hurt to have some battle plans of her own, for when everything inevitably went pear-shaped mid-fight.

The five of them were the first of the Masters to arrive at Castle Grayskull; not surprising, given that they'd been en route to the palace. They landed on the dirt in front of the drawbridge, and Teela hopped out with a distinct feeling of deja vu.

She'd touched down in the same spot a few hours earlier. Full of hope. Full of happiness. And with a friend.

How quickly things changed.

By unspoken command, everyone gathered around in a circle, and Father began laying out his plans. "Ram-Man, you'll be here. Mekaneck, you'll be in the sky until Stratos and Buzz-Off arrive..."

 _Teela_ , the Sorceress' voice said in her mind, drowning out Father. _Adam. Your presence is needed inside._

Apparently Father had gotten the same message, because he grunted and said, "Whatever it is, hurry back," before returning to the briefing.

Teela looked at Adam, who shrugged - but who also looked curious. What did the Sorceress need _them_ for?

They crossed the drawbridge and walked into the perpetually deep shadows of the gate, where the Sorceress was waiting for them. It was hard to see her face in the dim light.

"Follow me," she said.

Wasting no time on social niceties, Teela observed.

The Sorceress turned and began walking away, farther into the gloom, but paused when Adam called out, "Hey!"

Teela looked at him. The Sorceress didn't.

"Is Teela right? Is Adora my sister?" Adam asked.

The Sorceress lifted off the floor with a graceful sweep of her wings and flew away, her falcon staff lighting the darkness around her.

Adam sighed. It was resigned, but in a way that suggested _I should've known better_. "That's her favorite answer," he told Teela, grinning a little.

Teela made a noncommittal hum. The Sorceress had saved her life once, and she _wanted_ to like the woman, but… Maybe it wasn't her fault. Maybe you lost your people skills after you'd been shut up by yourself in a castle for a few years.

They followed the Sorceress through the twisting, dark corridors, going ever deeper into the heart of the castle. Teela was not a fan of the gargoyle motif; it seemed unnecessarily spooky. She also didn't like not knowing where she was going or how to get back.

At least there weren't any Twiggets whispering at her from the shadows.

Adam, darn him, strolled along comfortably. Of course – he'd been here before, at least once. Probably more than once, if he knew what the Sorceress' "favorite answer" was. But how many times? And why?

Teela stole glances at him as they walked, wondering.

Finally, the Sorceress touched down gracefully on a section of floor that looked exactly like every other section of floor, but something prickled at the back of Teela's neck.

"Here? Are you sure?" Adam asked the Sorceress, apparently surprised.

The woman's face was still difficult to see - this time hidden by the falcon headdress as she tipped her chin down. "There is something we must retrieve."

With that, the Sorceress struck the stone floor with the butt of her staff - _tap, tap, tap_ \- and suddenly they weren't standing on a floor but a descending lift.

And they were descending into…

"Whoa," Teela said, trying to take it all in.

Infinite chamber. Crystals. Blue-white light.

"Yeah, it's pretty amazing," Adam agreed, hands in his pockets, not even slightly fazed.

"It looks like the Crystal Castle," Teela said without thinking – and as soon as it was out of her mouth, she realized it was the truth. "I mean, the colors are different – actually it's all different – but… somehow it's... the same?"

Both she and Adam looked toward the Sorceress, who was gazing into the distance, her back to them.

So. No answers forthcoming, then.

The lift glided to a stop at the edge of one of the crystal platforms, and both Adam and the Sorceress disembarked. Teela followed suit, still trying not to gawk and still failing miserably. They crossed to the large pillar of blue-white crystals sprouting from the center of the platform and extending upwards to eternity.

"Remain here," the Sorceress said. Ordered, really, but nicely.

Teela and Adam stayed put, while the Sorceress moved to the platform's far edge and lifted her hands. Magic hummed around her falcon staff and did a fancy little lightshow in the air before a large, flat sword case floated up from the depths and into her outstretched arms.

Adam made a weird noise, but when Teela looked, she couldn't read his expression.

The Sorceress turned to face them again. The sword case was floating slightly above the Sorceress' palms. It was also glowing: pale gold, with little ephemeral swirls of bright glitter moving through the aura like shooting stars.

"Teela. Step forward," the Sorceress said.

With another glance at Adam - honestly, what was going on with him? - Teela walked over to the Sorceress. She meant to get a good look at the woman's face while she was up close like this, but there was something about the sword case that drew all her attention.

 _I know you_ , she thought. Which was stupid. She'd never seen the thing in her life.

The case's latch clicked free as she drew near, and the lid slowly lifted, revealing the sword resting inside.

"The Sword of Protection," the Sorceress intoned, extending her arms in Teela's direction. "Queen Veena's own blade."

Adam looked at the Sorceress, then the sword, then Teela, then back again. "It's for... Teela?"

"It has not been carried into battle since the days of Veena herself," the Sorceress said to Teela, as though Adam hadn't spoken. "You will carry it today."

Teela stepped closer to examine the sword. It looked like… a sword. A finely made sword, with exquisite damascene work along the length of the blade, and a large jewel set in the guard, which was further embellished with a design that might have been a flame, or might have been a flower.

But it was just a sword.

 _I know you_ , she thought again.

She reached into the case and picked it up. As her hand closed around the hilt, there was a flare of – something – in her chest, and gold sparkles danced at the corners of her vision. She shook her head, and the sparkles disappeared.

Just a sword.

"So does it, um, you know, _do_ anything?" Adam was asking the Sorceress.

Teela tilted the sword, the chamber's light dancing on the blade, watching the jewel in the guard as it shifted from deep heart's-blood red to a pink so delicate it was almost clear.

Just a sword.

A sword as old as Castle Grayskull. A sword carried into battle by a woman with wings.

Just an Eternian sword with an Etherian stone.

"It does whatever it needs to do," Teela said to no one in particular, still caught in the shimmering, ever-shifting colors of the jewel. Then she blinked, coming back to herself, and looked at the other two. "To – to protect people, I mean."

"Indeed," the Sorceress said. She closed the case and sent it away, back into the fathomless depths from whence it came. The move, of course, shielded her face from Teela's sight. "Its wielder must do the same. It is not an easy burden to carry."

"Yeah, okay, so... how long is she going to carry it?" Adam asked. "And does this mean she can learn, uh, other secrets? About I dunno, other swords? Maybe?"

They were interesting questions, and part of Teela wanted to hear the answers. Most her attention was stuck fast on the sword, however. There was a sheath in her hand that she didn't remember picking up, but she slid the sword into it and looped the leather strap over her shoulder. The sword settled easily against her back. It felt almost warm.

But that was probably her imagination.

The Sorceress made no reply for a long moment. Then she said, "We must return to the castle," and walked briskly towards the lift.

Adam caught Teela's eye and mouthed, _Favorite answer_ , while rolling his eyes. She huffed a laugh despite herself.

The journey in reverse was no less breathtaking, although it seemed to go a little faster. Maybe the Sorceress was less worried about people falling off on the ascent.

Castle Grayskull seemed exactly as they'd left it: dark, gloomy, spooky, lots of gargoyles.

The only difference was the unfamiliar weight on Teela's back. She adjusted the leather strap, more out of nerves than discomfort. A magic sword was nice and all, but she didn't think it would be enough to stop Hordak.

The Sorceress either read her mind, or was thinking along the same lines, because she said over her shoulder, "Hordak cannot be defeated if Adora is on his side."

Adam looked troubled. "He needs her that much?"

"She is his ultimate revenge," the Sorceress said gravely. "Adam, you must face her. Teela -"

"I'm going to protect him," Teela said. Rude of her to interrupt, but the Sorceress wasn't anywhere near her chain of command, and anyway, hadn't she just been given a Sword of Protection? Seemed like the blanks filled in themselves.

Since the Sorceress was still keeping her face concealed, it was hard to tell if she'd been offended, especially she went on in exactly the same tone, "You must go now. There are preparations I must make, and our time grows short."

"Right," Adam said. "Don't worry about us - I know the way out."

He gave Teela a little push, she made a face at him, and when she looked back at the Sorceress, the woman was gone. No wingbeats. Just… gone.

"She didn't want me to see her face," Teela said as they trekked back to the drawbridge gate. "And last time I was here, she wouldn't let me see her at all. Does she not trust me?"

"Nah, she's always mysterious," Adam said. "It's nothing personal."

Teela didn't buy it, but like so many other things, she couldn't put her finger on _why_. Aggravating.

Another long, winding stair brought them to the ground level. The gate stood open ahead, and if she squinted through the brightness, she could see her father was still briefing the Masters, because more had arrived. Stratos. Roboto. Man-E-Faces. A few others she couldn't make out.

She wanted to get out there and get ready, but then Adam said, "Teela," in such a solemn voice that it made her stomach sink all over again.

"What?" she said.

He opened his mouth to say something, closed it, opened it again, closed it again, looked up at the distant ceiling, and then blew out a heavy breath, frustration radiating.

Teela raised an eyebrow.

Adam pushed a hand through his hair and said, "Look, I know the Sorceress said to protect me, but… I don't want you to. I don't need it," he went on in a rush. "Magic sword or not. I mean, I'm not a bad fighter. I'm better than you think, and I've got - uh, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve that Adora won't expect. So you can stay with Man-At-Arms and the Masters. Help them. I'll handle her on my own."

She stared.

Because that was the single most stupid thing she'd ever heard, and once while she was being held captive she'd had to listen to Clawful and Whiplash try to figure out how to unlock a cell door for the better part of thirty minutes. Emphasis on _try_. Eventually Tri-Klops had unlocked it for them.

And how _dare_ he say he didn't want her to protect him! She was his _friend_! He was the _first_ person she was going to protect, after Father. And he didn't _need_ her -? Ha! He must've been napping through her report earlier. Regular Adora would mop the floor with him; mind-controlled Adora would put a sword through his guts in two seconds.

How _dare_ he.

In the few seconds before she exploded - in the few seconds where she was still struggling to put her rage into words - Adam gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder, then jogged towards the gate.

Ditching her. Because he didn't need her. _How dare he_ -

But as quickly as it had come, her anger suddenly fizzled away, like golden sparkles at the edge of her vision. She took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling the warm, comforting weight of the sword on her back.

She didn't actually want to yell at him. She wanted to… she wanted to _protect him_.

She was running after him before she knew it. "Adam, wait!"

He slowed and then stopped, turning to face her as he did. A question waited, unspoken, in his expression.

"I'm coming with you," she declared.

That surprised him - probably because she wasn't yelling at him. "Why? You don't have to. It's okay, really."

Idiot. She stepped closer, one hand going to her staff and the other settling itself, of its own accord, on his forearm. "Because I have to protect you, Your Highness," she said, deliberately making her voice light. "I swore an oath and everything."

He gave her a half-grin, though it quickly faded into seriousness. "But you _don't_ have to. This is my fight. I mean, I'm – um – I mean, King Grayskull was _my_ ancestor, after all."

"Well, I'm no Queen Veena," she said, "but I have a magic sword, and I'm going to keep you safe."

She meant it. Elders, she meant it, and a part of her was startled by that intensity. She was going to fight beside him until her last breath – whether he liked it or not.

Adam was staring at her, blue eyes unreadable. Somehow her hand on his arm had dropped, and now their fingers intertwined.

"Don't sell yourself short, Teela," he said. His hand tightened around hers and he added, soft and sincere, "I think you'd be a great queen."

She leaned forward and kissed him.

It was impulsive, and dumb, and since she'd never really kissed anyone, just a clumsy quick press of her lips to his. She felt it reverberate through her body, from her toes to the top of her head, before she drew back.

Teela met his eyes for a moment, and then she had to let go of his hand and look away, face flaming. There was a lot she could have said, but what came out was, "I – I think you'll be a great king."

Adam made a small noise in his throat. Teela risked a glance; he was equally scarlet. Their eyes caught, and suddenly it was all she could do to bite back a wide, foolish grin.

He didn't even try. It was the same brilliant smile he'd thrown her way all her life, except now she recognized the warm feeling in her chest for what it really was.

"Yeah," he said, buoyant, "but I'm no Grayskull."

She scoffed. "Don't tell me you're scared."

"What, me? No way." He rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head and grinning up at her through a blonde fringe. Sheepish and hopeful and charming, wheedling treats out of the palace cooks. "But, you know, if _you_ are, maybe I could give you a kiss for good luck or something."

There was a clock ticking in the back of her head, reminding her that at any moment they were going to need to be in position to receive their _guests_ , but there was also a fierce song lighting her blood, telling her _Yes, right now, you must._

Easiest choice ever.

"I guess so," she said, feigning nonchalance and doing a horrible job of it. "I mean, we might as well."

This time he met her halfway. This time her head tilted sideways, just slightly, and her eyes closed and her hands hovered stupidly for a moment before she settled them on his waist. His hands landed on her upper arms, hesitant and – perfect.

And his mouth – whew. _Elders_. She felt like an idiot, going all these years without even trying to kiss him once. If she'd known what it'd be like – how soft and warm his lips were, how lightning would whip across her skin and settle, seething, in her gut – oh, she would've done this a _long_ time ago.

And then her communicator squawked to life and her father's voice said, "Teela! Where are you?"

She and Adam jumped apart as though Father was physically there, and she fumbled for the communicator button as though she'd never used the darn thing before.

"We're on our way out," she said, a little breathless. Definitely not sounding like a kid caught stealing treats from the kitchen.

"Hurry," Father said, curt. "Things are happening."

Well. That couldn't be good.

Teela looked at Adam. He looked at her, then at the gate, one hand going for his sword, though it dropped again before he touched it. Instead, he reached out to her, and she took his hand.

"Don't worry," Adam said. His fingers squeezed hers. "Everything's gonna be fine."

He meant it. He believed it.

But all Teela heard was Grayskull's deeper voice, saying in her first vision, _Do not despair. All will be well._

Grayskull had meant it. He'd believed it.

And look at how _that_ had turned out.


	20. boss battle

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 **twenty: boss battle**

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As she and Adam cleared the castle's entrance and began running across the drawbridge, swords in their hands, Teela took in the scene and realized that Father had been understating.

 _Things are happening._

Yeah. _Things_. Like the end of the world.

Portals were opening on the ground and in the sky - purple, red, and black spirals that popped up just long enough to disgorge an evil warrior or two before disappearing again. She took a quick head count; all of Skeletor's usual crew were on the scene, and all were engaging Masters.

There were currently more bad guys than good guys. Not great.

In the center of the chaos, floating high over the land facing the castle, was Shadow Weaver. Magic didn't crackle around her; it blazed. It roared. She was surrounded by a tempest of dark energy. Lightning and smoke. It was directed at the sky above the castle, where the clouds were slowly beginning to swirl.

Also not great.

Count Marzo and Skeletor were on the ground below her. They were firing bolts of magical energy at any Masters who seemed to be approaching Weaver - but almost mechanically. Perfunctorily.

Evil-Lyn was on the ground, too. Her shoulder was bandaged and her arm was in a sling, so her sneering, gloating laughter was less effective than usual. Certainly her magic blasts were.

There was no sign of Adora.

Okay. So. In that case, first priority: take down Weaver's terrible trio. It would be tricky but still doable, since two were whammied and one was injured. If they could just damage Marzo's amulet or the enchanted doohickey on Skeletor, that might be enough to turn the tide in their favor.

She glanced at Adam, who glanced back. He was thinking the same thing, she could tell.

Three more steps to clear the bridge. Two. One -

Teela got that warning buzz down her spine and grabbed Adam by the back of his shirt, yanking him to a stop with her as a portal bloomed right where the wood of the drawbridge met solid rock. They both nearly lost their footing as a result, but Teela had time to bring Veena's sword up, instinctively, in a high block.

In the same moment, a sword flashed through the portal, followed by the blonde girl wielding it. The blade sliced down into Veena's sword, which held. Teela pushed back with her sword arm and aimed a kick at Adora's midsection.

Adora leapt away easily. She landed lightly. She brought her sword to ready position smoothly.

She moved like a perfect weapon. And that's all she was, because it wasn't _her_.

Her eyes were empty black.

"Adora," Teela said, swallowing down the fear. "Adora! You have to fight it!"

Adora ignored her. "Prince Adam," she said in a toneless voice. "I am here to kill you."

Adam drew his sword. "Oh yeah? I'd like to see you try."

"I _have_ seen her try," Teela hissed at him from the corner of her mouth. "Remember?"

Adam grinned. _Grinned!_ Was he crazy or stupid? Hard to tell; maybe both. He settled into a stance. "I like my odds."

Adora didn't give them any more time to chat. She lunged forward, aiming for Adam's head. He blocked, but she was ready for his counter and came in with her next strike in the same breath.

Rushing in between them would've been a great way to get her guts spilled all over the scenic cliffs of Castle Grayskull. Instead, Teela waited until Adora was focused on Adam before she launched her own attack - a feint with Veena's sword, a kick to the head behind it.

Adora saw the feint in her peripheral vision and dodged it. She didn't quite get out of the way of the kick and caught Teela's boot mid-back. She grunted, rolled with the blow, and came up on her feet with her sword ready again.

Her face was blank. Her eyes glowed black.

"Don't do this!" Teela said to her. "We're your friends!"

She might've saved her breath; Adora showed no reaction. Just launched into another attack.

Teela's heart sank. She risked a look at the main fight, trying to take in as much detail as possible in a half-second glance. The Masters and evil warriors - still fighting. Shadow Weaver - still floating. The trio - also floating now, and moving away from each other.

Moving into position, she realized. She didn't know how she knew. But she did, down to her bones.

 _Hordak cannot be defeated while Adora is on his side_ , the Sorceress had said.

They had to stop her - had to break the spell. But how? The magic sword wasn't offering much in the way of help. It was just being warm and golden in her grip, telling her that she needed to protect Adam. Which she was _doing_ , thank you very much, even though the short range of the weapon was _extremely_ frustrating. Why hadn't Queen Veena carried the Staff of Protection into battle, there was a good question.

 _Come on, give me something I can_ _ **use**_ , she thought at it.

Faint golden sparkles gathered at the edges of her vision. She ducked a strike and came up between Adora's sword and Adam's arm, which the girl was evidently trying to separate from his body. Their swords locked.

The golden sparkles got stronger. When she blinked, she could see a dark nimbus around Adora's head. A thin smoky line led back towards the evil sorceress.

Of course. Weaver couldn't direct Skeletor, Count Marzo, and Adora all at the same time, while simultaneously opening a massive portal to another dimension _and_ rebuffing the Masters' attacks. She had Adora under control - but was giving her as much autonomy as possible to carry out her mission.

Maybe that nice long leash could be cut.

"You're stronger than Shadow Weaver!" Teela tried again. "Fight her!"

No go. Instead, Adora kept fighting them.

One of the things Father had insisted she learn was how to face more than one person in combat. It wasn't hard, if you could control the space. The key was maneuvering your opponents into positions where only one could attack you at a time - making them get in line, more or less. If they knew what they were doing, they would maneuver _you_ into a position where all of them could attack at once. Less desirable.

Teela had liked the drills where she got to knock down multiple attackers. She'd also enjoyed the drills where she and Adam had been the attackers, set upon some hapless Academy cadet or guardsman who needed smartening up.

Definitely more fun than the dance lessons. Although it _was_ kind of a dance, she thought, watching him now. They moved around Adora, keeping her between them whenever possible, one of them launching an attack while she was still engaged with the other.

Strike from Adam. Block and counterstrike from Adora, who had to break off pressing the attack because she needed to dodge the downstroke from Teela's sword. Which she did, just in time to block another strike. And repeat, with variations.

Part of controlling the space in this fight was keeping them away from the cliff edge; Adora was trying to put her back to it so they couldn't engage her from that direction.

The abyss was supposedly bottomless, although Teela knew that there was a entrance to Castle Grayskull in the subterranean caverns that underlaid much of the region - Skeletor had attacked it once and almost gotten inside. But magic was weird, so who was to say it _wasn't_ bottomless?

Either way, the sheer drop of the cliffs became more of a slope as you moved away from the castle. Eventually they were fighting in a field of craggy boulders. It was far enough from the main fight that Teela hoped Weaver's hold on Adora might be weakened further… but a quick golden-sparkles squint told her the tether was still in place.

Speaking of the main fight - time for another check-in.

Beast Man's nasty blue wyvern batted a Wind Raider out of the sky and made a pass at the castle. The creature let out a blast of electric fire, to no effect; just in time, a shimmering blueish-white forcefield spread over it and well down the sides.

Then again, maybe the forcefield had nothing to do with the wyvern, because Weaver's magic had now put the skies over Castle Grayskull into full boil. Three figures were just under the madly swirling clouds, glowing with their own magic and safely cocooned within more of Shadow Weaver's black smoke.

 _Despondos!_ came the chant, more felt than heard. _Despondos!_

"No!" Adam said, breaking off his attack to look, pale and horrified, at the clouds. "They can't -"

Teela made a desperate lunge that barely stopped Adora from slicing through his unguarded midsection. "Focus!" she snapped at him.

 _Despondos!_

And the portal opened.

It was like a tornado, like a god's finger reaching down and stirring the earth. It veered away from the castle - still shining under its protective dome - and struck the ground not far from Weaver. And suddenly the fight was swarming with Horde Troopers. Metal armor, red bat-wing insignias, blasters in hand.

Well, great. Because the bad guys didn't have a numerical advantage already.

But there was no sign of Hordak. Teela tightened her grip on the sword. It pulsed with warmth, and she suddenly understood that it was going to take considerably more power to drag him through the portal. After all, King Grayskull had specifically exiled Hordak; the Troopers were just collateral. And a magician's dying spell was their most powerful.

So they still had some time. Probably not smart to waste any more of it on this dumb fight, though.

Adora cartwheeled clear of Teela's parry, putting enough distance between them that Teela felt safe trying to have a nonverbal strategy session with Adam.

A nod in Adora's direction, a jerked chin in Weaver's, a mouthed _cut it_ , a lift of her magic sword.

A glance between all three of those things, a furrowed brow, a sharp nod.

The furrowed brow and nod gave Teela an intense feeling of déjà vu, but she'd work on that when they weren't under attack by a perfect killer.

On the next exchange, she blocked a strike and slipped diagonally past Adora. Waited until she was busy trying to murder Adam again. Thought, _You can do this!_ at the magic sword. Slashed it up and through the smoky line of the tether.

To absolutely no effect.

Okay. Try again. Return stroke, downward.

Nope.

Adam must have seen her expression - disgust, dismay, rage, all of the above - because he also made a face. Teela rejoined the fight and he slipped out, giving the air behind Adora's head a few slashes of his own. It was well-intentioned but ultimately useless, because it wasn't like _Adam_ had a magic sword. He couldn't even see what he was swinging at.

Time for Plan… what were they on? Plan C? Plan D, for "desperation"?

Teela hadn't gotten past that thought when the ground shook, making everyone pause to keep their footing, and a tsunami of greenery rolled out of the forest. It promptly crashed down over the Troopers.

Moss Man had _amazing_ timing.

Adora's timing wasn't too bad either. While Teela was gawking, she spun into a kick aimed at Teela's head, sword following close behind. Teela didn't have a good angle for a block, so she danced backwards -

\- and tripped right over a rock. Elders! Her luck was so obnoxious sometimes.

This was definitely the moment when Adora was going to close in for the kill. Except she wasn't.

Teela scrambled to her feet again, getting a fresh grip on the sword - and trying not to look like a total slack-jawed idiot as Adam single-handedly took on Hordak's ultimate weapon.

And held his own.

It was a fast, ugly exchange of blows. But he made it look like a dance.

Déjà vu. She knew that fighting style. She _knew_ it. The answer was right there, right on the edge of her awareness...

Adora hit the ground, rolled, and came up with a handful of grit that she flung into Adam's face.

Adam shut his eyes and averted his face, sputtering as he inhaled dust. Adora lunged forward, sword braced, intending to skewer Adam.

Teela would have jumped over it, but that wasn't really Adam's style. Quick as a thought, he dropped to the ground, boom, tailbone-first. Not the most graceful move - but a deceptively clumsy one. Because now he was in a crouch, and just as quickly, he planted his left hand in the dirt, used his left leg for momentum, and swung his right leg up in a round kick that was meant for the side of Adora's skull.

She jerked back at the last possible second. Adam's booted foot smacked into her sword arm's wrist instead.

Teela knew the move; Father had taught it to them both. It was a very fun kick to do. Less so to receive.

Adora gave a reflexive gasp of pain and her sword went sailing away through the air. It clanged against a couple of boulders and ricocheted itself right into the abyss.

The momentum of the kick had carried Adam back to his feet. "Knew you'd fall for that!" he exclaimed, smug.

Teela, on the other hand, had assumed the worse-case scenario and was already coming in from Adora's left. As she closed, the other girl leapt backward, arching over Teela's strike. It was total rip-off of Teela's style, but it was an elegant and economic move, darn her, and it allowed one of _Adora's_ booted feet to catch Adam under the jaw as she flipped.

It knocked him back. It knocked him down. His sword fell from his hand as he collapsed against the rocks.

Unconscious.

"Adam!" Teela cried. No answer.

 _Elders! Let him only be unconscious._

Adora was behind her now, and as much as Teela wanted to see to Adam, she had to focus on the fight or both of them would be out of luck. Heart in her throat, she whirled to face the other girl, dodging a vicious, slashing axe kick.

She wasn't afraid for Adam. She was _furious_.

The Sword of Protection sang in her hands as she attacked Adora. It seemed weightless now, glowing gold, pulling itself through the air. Alive. Seeking.

 _Adora!_

That hadn't been out loud.

Gold sparkles choked her vision. Maybe that was why she didn't see the punch coming. It caught her in the solar plexus, with a lightning-fast follow-up to her face.

Um. Hard to breathe.

Adora grabbed her sword arm and pivoted, throwing Teela over her hip. Teela slammed into the dirt spine-first, knocking her breath out all over again.

She didn't mean to. It just happened: her fingers opened, and she let go of the sword.

It thudded to the ground just out of Teela's reach, rotating slightly, sending up a small puff of dust as it slid.

Adora lunged for it.

So did Teela. She'd won the race to the blaster back on Etheria; history was on her side. And all she had to do was heave herself over a few inches. Even gasping for air as she was, that was totally doable.

Her hand landed on the large, shifting jewel.

Adora's fingers closed around the sword's grip at the same moment.

There was a great rush of light and sound and –

 _A room in Castle Grayskull. A bedroom. Night outside. Tapestries on the walls, rich furniture. A woman is lying in the bed, feverish and moaning, face creased in pain. A younger woman is sitting at her bedside, obviously some sort of caregiver. Her dress is plain and sensible, as is her headscarf._

 _"Darkness," the woman on the bed whispers, shivering despite the fire blazing in the hearth and the blankets piled atop her bed. A wing twitches fretfully. Veena._

 _"Shh, Your Majesty," the caregiver says. She wrings out a wet cloth and gently wipes Veena's forehead. "You need to rest."_

 _Veena closes her eyes – then opens them again as a baby cries._

 _There's a bassinet in the corner._

 _Veena tries to rise, but the caregiver presses her back down. "No, milady, save your strength. I'll see to the little ones."_

 _"No," Veena says. Her voice is weak; sweat is beading her brow. "I must…"_

 _But the rest trails off into silence. She's unconscious, maybe._

 _The caregiver crosses the room to the bassinet. Inside are two tiny babies, each snugly swaddled. One is serenely asleep. The other is red-faced and angry._

 _"There, there, Princess," the caregiver croons, lifting the crying baby to her shoulder. "You're all right. Everything's fine. See? Your mother will be well soon, and your father will be home again by dawn. Won't he be sad to have missed your arrival!"_

 _The caregiver joggles the baby princess, pats her small back, to no avail: she wails louder than ever._

 _The caregiver casts a worried glance at Veena, then at the other baby. Both look troubled in their sleep. "Come, dear heart," she murmurs to the princess. "Maybe a walk will settle you, hmm?"_

 _They walk out of the bedroom, the caregiver humming a lullaby._

 _On the bed, Veena's eyes flutter. "Darkness," she repeats, barely audible._

 _But there's no way for the caregiver to hear. She takes the baby, still fretting loudly, through the quiet, shadowed corridors of the castle, wandering aimlessly, it seems, until they are at the drawbridge._

 _It's open, but there are no guards. There's no one anywhere. The world is holding its breath._

 _"Look, Princess," the caregiver says, tucking the blanket more securely around the fussing baby. "Look how beautiful the stars –"_

 _She freezes. Halts. Her eyes go unfocused, then black._

 _A low, rumbling chuckle fills the air._

 _Hordak steps from the shadows. "Excellent timing," he says to the caregiver. His mouth slides open in a fanged smile. "Though disappointing. I was hoping to challenge the mighty sorceress herself."_

 _The caregiver says nothing. Does nothing. Stares blankly ahead._

 _Hordak touches the tip of one clawed finger to the baby's soft chin. She screws up her face more tightly and wails, high and thin. He laughs. "Perhaps I will get my wish yet."_

 _The caregiver says nothing. Does nothing._

 _"Follow me," Hordak commands in a snarl, his amusement gone. The caregiver steps forward; his black cape swirls around her, and they all three disappear._

Blinding light.

Teela was abruptly back in reality, but she felt strangely apart from her body – as though she was floating above it, watching events unfold instead of properly participating.

Her body was standing now, as was Adora. They were facing each other over the Sword of Protection, which was floating in midair, point down.

"Adora," she heard herself say. It was not her voice. And the hand that reached out to lay gently against Adora's cheek was not Teela's hand. It belonged to someone much older, much more powerful, who spoke in a soft voice that echoed mightily, whose presence overlaid Teela's body with glowing gold magic, with the shimmering ghosts of wings. "My daughter."

Adora shook her head, blinking rapidly, expression bewildered. Her eyes were blue again – the same bright blue as Adam's.

"I never stopped searching for you," Veena said, that soft voice humming with a grief so intense it would bring most anyone to their knees. "But Hordak hid you too well. Indeed, it was years before I even suspected he was behind it. Oh, my dear one. I wish I was truly with you now."

Adora took a small, hiccuping breath. "M-mother?" she whispered.

Veena smiled, warm and strong, and took Adora's hands in her own, clasping them around the hilt of the sword, whose jewel shifted from palest pink to crimson. "Though you were taken from us long ago, through your veins flows the blood and the power of Eternia's greatest champions. You must take up this sword and put right what Hordak has sought to destroy. You must protect all that he endangers. It is your sacred duty. _For the honor of Grayskull, Adora!_ "

Teela slammed back into herself, her knees abruptly buckling. She dropped to the ground, looking up at Adora, wondering what had just happened - and what was coming next.

"For… for the honor… of Grayskull," Adora said softly, wonderingly, looking at the sword in her hand. Then her expression hardened, and her eyes snapped to the vortex. She took a breath and thrust the sword skyward, high over her head. Defiant. Blazing. " _For the honor of Grayskull!"_

Lightning crashed down, instantaneous and blinding, deafening in its roar. Somehow Teela knew the blue-white color was Grayskull's magic – and yet, there were golden streaks mixed in as well. Veena's magic.

The gold swirled around Adora, who was barely visible as an outline in the center of the light, and exploded outward with a thunderclap as the blue-white magic faded.

 _"I AM SHE-RA!"_

The light disappeared. Standing in Adora's place was a woman warrior, powerfully built, in armor. White and gold: the colors of Castle Grayskull. On her torso was the flame-flower design from her mother's sword, and the golden crown swept back into wings that framed her face. Her hair hung down in two thick plaits, and her red cloak was trimmed with fur, just like her father's.

Teela stared.

Adora – She-Ra – swung around for a moment, just long enough to meet Teela's eyes. "I've got Shadow Weaver. Go help the Masters," she ordered. Her voice was different; Adora's voice, only _more_.

With that, she turned back, plaits and cape swinging, gold armor shining, sword blazing with its own internal light, and was charging off before Teela could say a word.

The last of Veena's power must have left her, because Teela's hands were shaking, and she was having a hard time catching her breath.

She looked at She-Ra. She looked at the castle. She looked at Adam, unconscious. She looked at his sword, lying in the dust, out of his reach.

She saw it now. She saw all of it.

There had been two children born to Veena and Grayskull. Twins. A girl and a boy. One of them had been stolen away by darkness. One of them had lived, and, untold years later, the Elders had chosen that prince's descendent to sit on the throne of Eternia.

And a new prince had received Grayskull's sword. Which was lying in the dust, out of his reach.

Someone had to go get that sword. Someone had to put it in Adam's hands.

Teela made a noise that might've been a sob or a laugh. _Lucky me_ , she thought wildly.

Somehow she got her feet under her, and staggered over to where Adam had fetched up against the rocks. His eyes were closed, his face slack, but his breathing was even.

"Adam," she said, dropping to her knees beside him, shaking his shoulder.

He groaned. His eyes fluttered, but he didn't move.

"Adam! Get up! We need -" she squeezed her eyes shut and pushed the words out – "we need He-Man."

Another groan. This time he tried to sit up; she had to help him. He rubbed his eyes and squinted at her, confused. "Teela?"

She grabbed his sword – Elders, it was heavy! – and pressed it into his hands. "Hurry up and say – whatever it is you say to transform. Adora can't do this on her own."

He jerked back, jolted fully awake, eyes widening as he caught on. "You – oh man – Teela, I couldn't – Wait a minute, _Adora_?"

She drew on reserves she didn't know she had and hauled him to his feet, letting him take his own weight only when he was leaning against the rocks for support. "Yeah. Her name is She-Ra right now."

There was bitterness in her words, which came as a surprise to her.

It made Adam wince. Guilt was suddenly tightening the lines of his face. "I promise I'll explain."

Teela was already backpedaling away from him, not wanting to be anywhere near those mystical lightning bolts when they hit. "First stop the bad guys, okay?"

He looked up at Shadow Weaver. "At least she's too busy for more mind-control," he muttered. Then he took a breath and pushed off the rocks, swinging his sword around in a great arc before ending in approximately the same position as Adora. " _By the power of Grayskull!"_

Lightning. It roared in her ears. Dazzled her eyes.

 _"I HAVE THE POWER!"_

He-Man lowered his sword. He glanced at her, then turned away and leapt towards the battle. One mighty bound. Sword flashing.

Teela wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

 _Stupid._ Looking directly at the light like that. No wonder her eyes had teared up.

She stood there for a moment, breathing hard. Everything seemed muted, even the thunder from the portal. Everything seemed disconnected, like Veena had overtaken her body again.

It was too much. She couldn't.

She had to.

She wiped her eyes again, expanded her staff, and set off at a run to help the other Masters.

Even with He-Man and She-Ra wading through the Horde forces, batting them aside a dozen at a time like toy soldiers, there were just _so many_ bad guys that the Masters were still busy. Ram-Man was grappling with Whiplash and Clawful; Stratos was taking shots at the portal trio with Buzz-Off; Moss Man was sending foliage at Beast Man and his wyvern; Roboto was dueling Webstor; Uncle Fisto and Mekaneck were battling a small armada of doomseekers and Tri-Klops; Sy-Klone had his hands full with what were obviously three of Hordak's lieutenants. And on it went, everywhere she looked.

Orko was in the fight, too, flitting around Shadow Weaver and apparently casting any spell that came to mind at the Horde sorceress. He was doing as much damage as a gnat could do to a dragon - and in fact Weaver was paying him exactly as much attention as a dragon would a gnat - but Teela admired the effort.

She looked for a spot to jump in and happened to see that Father needed some help; Troopers were attacking him in waves. It was as good a place as any.

Teela brought her staff down on a Trooper's helmet and kicked him aside, making an opening. She fought her way to Father, and they formed up, back-to-back.

"Teela!" Father said. He sounded pleased, not worried. "Is Adam all right?"

It hit her then, with all the force of Adora's earlier punches: _he knew_.

Father had known that Adam was He-Man _the whole time_.

The muffled, disconnected feeling meant she could have that revelation and still keep fighting. So she did. She even managed to say, "Adam is fine."

She-Ra and He-Man had moved on from the Troopers. He-Man was squaring off with Hordak's many-legged lieutenant, who could shoot rays of some kind from his bugged-out eyes. She-Ra grabbed the shaggy-furred, snarly lieutenant by the scruff of his neck and leapt high into the air with a ferocious battle yell, throwing him at the wyvern. The lieutenant knocked Beast Man from the saddle of his wyvern; both of them slammed into the ground while the wyvern writhed around and screeched.

"Who is that?" Father asked.

"Her name is She-Ra," Teela said. She looked over her shoulder; the white and gold armor practically glowed.

"She-Ra," Father repeated. One eyebrow was up. "An ally of He-Man?"

Teela smacked the snake end of her staff into an unfortunate Trooper's face; the man staggered back and collapsed. "Looks like."

Father dealt with a few Troopers himself, and when they'd cleared a breathing space, he said, "What happened with Adora?"

"Oh, _Princess_ Adora, daughter of _King Grayskull_?" Teela couldn't meet his eyes. She needed the disconnect. It was very important that she stay there, in the muted, untethered world where she didn't have to acknowledge the pain roiling inside her chest.

She-Ra grabbed the wyvern's tail while He-Man punched it in its head, and then the two of them threw the unconscious creature into the forest.

Father said nothing. It was hard to judge his expression under the face shield.

The words pressed against her lips until she had to say them: "I guess it runs in her _family_."

More inscrutable silence. And then he said, "You understand this is an important secret."

Mistake.

She snapped back into her body. Fury hotter than dragonfire burned beneath her ribcage. "What I _understand_ is you've all been _lying to me_!"

He put out a hand as though he meant to rest it on her shoulder. "Teela -"

"No!" she yelled. Well, maybe it was more of a shriek. Her voice sounded a little shrill and a little hysterical even to her own ears. But what was she supposed to feel? To do? The world was ending. It was crumbling around her with every second.

Father dropped his hand and waited.

She sucked in a painful breath and then another and she was fine, she could handle this - she was a soldier, she was a captain of the Royal Guard –

\- _took an oath and everything_ -

 _\- make a great Queen –_

And she somehow pulled herself together and looked her father in the eyes and said, in a passably normal voice, "I won't tell anyone."

He didn't look happy, but he nodded.

The fight raged on. He-Man and She-Ra were starting to take an appreciable toll on the Horde forces; the tide of bad guys was slowing to a trickle, and the Masters were doing more one-on-one fights instead of the one-on-twenty of a few minutes before.

But the portal was still open, and no one was even coming close to Shadow Weaver, not even Orko, who, Elders bless him, was doggedly casting spells.

He-Man punched the witch's sphere of black smoke and was zapped by dark magical lightning with enough oomph to knock him backwards. She-Ra delivered a spinning downward slash with her sword that got the same result – and Weaver's full attention. The Horde sorceress began flinging magic at them in earnest, and the two were forced to duck and dodge.

Hordak's remaining lieutenant was big and covered with clammy-looking pale green skin. He had suckers for hands and feet, which were very useful for grabbing onto He-Man's back and shoulders when he charged and jumped on him. He-Man reeled under his weight and whatever the sucker-hands were doing – poison? energy draining? – and She-Ra broke off engaging Weaver to go help.

Meanwhile, in the skies, the trio was ramping up again.

 _Despondos!_ came the chant. The portal boiled and bubbled; a low-level tremor began running through the ground. Teela felt it through the soles of her boots as pebbles danced and jittered across the soil.

"Not good," Father said tersely. He opened his communicator and said, "Stratos! Buzz-Off! Both of you, target Evil-Lyn!"

"On it!" Stratos replied. Above, they changed course abruptly, converging on the trio's weak link.

 _Despondos!_

One more chant and it was all over. But then –

Orko cast yet another spell - Elders only knew what it was _supposed_ to be, but what came out of his hat was an enormous custard pie and a mechanical hand that threw it straight at Shadow Weaver. She was an evil sorceress of astonishing power and ability, but, perhaps understandably, she had never foreseen the need to prepare a magical defense against a Trollan's giant pie, and it passed through the sizzling chaos of her forcefield and smacked directly into her hooded face.

Mass plus velocity plus absolute surprise. With a strangled cry, Weaver was knocked out of the air and made an undignified, custard-covered landing on her butt, magic dissolving as her focus broke.

Father barked a laugh.

Not far away, Mekaneck shouted, "All right, _Orko!_ "

Orko just floated in place, hands over his mouth, eyes huge, clearly stunned by his own victory.

There was an angry rumble from the portal, and Teela quit watching Orko to swing her attention skyward.

Stratos and Buzz-Off had followed orders, and with Shadow Weaver down for the count, the forcefield protecting the trio of magicians was gone. Evil-Lyn was doing her best to fend them off, but her injury was hampering her. Count Marzo and Skeletor were back to making perfunctory attempts.

Buzz-Off got the shot. Evil-Lyn fell out of the sky, arcing towards what Teela hoped was a very hard impact with the ground on the far side of the abyss.

The portal wavered. Angrier rumbles.

"One down," Father said. Into his communicator, he ordered, "Get Skeletor _now_!"

Masters swarmed the sky. It seemed inevitable now. One of them would get Skeletor; Marzo alone wouldn't be able to hold the portal; it would collapse with Hordak still trapped on the other side. They would win. Eternia would be safe.

Teela opened her mouth to say as much, and pain stabbed into her temples. She cried out and clutched at her head as the voice of the Crystal Castle's guardian seared across her memory, twinned with Veena's: _IT WILL TAKE ALL THE CHILDREN OF GRAYSKULL._

Teela blinked hard, trying to focus on the battle, which was tricky because the world kept wobbling around. "All the children," she mumbled.

"Teela!" Her father's hands were on her shoulders, bracing her. "What is it? Are you hurt?"

The pain was fading as quickly as it'd come, but she was past caring about it now; there were bigger problems. "It's not going to work," she told him. "We're going to lose!"

He looked up at the portal.

She didn't, not at first. She looked at Shadow Weaver, who wasn't summoning a devastating attack in these last moments before her plan fell apart. The sorceress was standing motionless, focused inward.

Focused on her thralls.

Count Marzo and Skeletor turned as one, both firing massive bolts of magical energy down towards the Masters. Specifically, towards He-Man and She-Ra, still on the ground, who also moved in unison, bringing their swords up and crossing them in a bright flare a half-second before the bolts hit.

Teela shouted, " _NO!_ "

Too late.

She saw it in slow motion. The bolts reflected back towards the two thralled magicians, magnified by Grayskull's power. Count Marzo and Skeletor moved - smoothly, gracefully - out of the way. The reflected magic struck the collapsing portal instead.

The whole world cracked. Noise and wind. Deafening. Blinding.

Somehow Teela kept one eye half-open. Somehow she saw the ghostly shape of Hordak surround Skeletor. Somehow, over the screaming wind, she heard the low, snarled laughter of a man long denied his victory, but victorious all the same.

Then everything went dark.

.

.

.

Warmth brought her awake again - soft, golden warmth, like morning sunshine. Teela opened her eyes and saw She-Ra crouching over her, one hand pressed to Teela's forehead.

"Welcome back," She-Ra said, smiling at her. She withdrew her hand and the lovely golden feeling faded.

Teela sat up, taking stock. All her limbs were still attached, and she was still at Castle Grayskull. Things could be worse. She squinted at her friend. "Healing magic?"

She-Ra frowned at her hand, flexing her fingers. "Apparently."

Despite the muscles and the fancy headgear, it was a very Adora reaction. Teela couldn't find a laugh, but she did manage to huff in amusement. She allowed She-Ra to pull her to her feet, secretly grateful for the effortless strength that held her until the world stabilized again. "My father?"

"He's fine, don't worry." She-Ra looked over her shoulder; Teela followed her gaze and saw He-Man helping some of the Masters. Father was sitting with his back against the wreckage of a Wind Raider, looking exhausted but uninjured. And not so exhausted that he wasn't able to give orders to He-Man and the Masters who were up and moving.

Teela swallowed down a lot of feelings. "What about Hordak?"

She-Ra grimaced. "He possessed Skeletor, and then they all disappeared."

"Back to Snake Mountain," Teela said. She had no way of knowing if that was correct, but she knew it anyway. Defeat settled across her shoulders, so heavy that it almost made her sit back down again. She murmured, "We lost."

"No," She-Ra said swiftly. Firmly. She wore Veena's sword at her hip, and her hand tightened around the hilt. "No. I'm here, and I'm… awake. That means there's still hope."

Teela looked at her. Adora was in there, if you knew to see it. And while She-Ra was resolute, shining, strong, Adora had just had her life tossed upside down - again. "Are you okay?" she asked.

She-Ra gave her a lopsided smile and said, softly, "Thank you, my friend."

Teela felt a little better. At least _something_ had gone right today.

She-Ra glanced over her shoulder again, then called, "He-Man! I have Teela. Did you find Prince Adam?"

"Not yet," he replied, walking towards them. He tried to make eye contact with Teela, who wasn't having it.

There were limits. She'd hit all of them today.

Father started to say something, but Teela surprised herself by beating him to it: "I left Adam and Adora over there," she said, pointing.

"Thank you, Captain," She-Ra said, winking. She gave Teela an Etherian salute and gestured for He-Man to follow her. Both of them jogged off in the direction Teela had indicated.

Teela stayed where she was for a long time, as the other Masters picked themselves up and dusted themselves off, as her father came to stand silently behind her, as the shimmer of Grayskull's magic faded from his namesake castle, as the sun slid down towards the horizon.

Eventually, two small figures came trudging up the hill, their fair hair glinting in the last of the day's light. One of them waved; the other shouted hello.

Teela turned and walked away.

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 **Note:** So I'm sure you're like, "Whaaaaat Adora's not Veena and Grayskull's kid! How dare you!" Which is fair. But I've always disliked the plot device of a _long-lost secret twin sister!_ for a variety of reasons that I shall not go into here (although, if you really want to be on the receiving end of that diatribe, lemme know). In the end, if you're looking at what her origin absolutely requires, it's that Adora is 1) a descendent of Grayskull, and 2) kidnapped and raised by the Horde. Having a bad guy who can access a dimension that exists outside of space and time makes 500 years meaningless, ergo - in this story, Adora is Adam's great-great-whatever-aunt, not his sister. Sorry/not sorry.

Anyway! One more chapter! And if you think the wait for _this_ chapter was bad, just know that I got the idea for this story in 2003! Wheee!


	21. the new normal

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 **twenty-one: the new normal**

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Training field.

First light.

No Adam.

Which was fine. Teela very much didn't want to see him that morning. Possibly never again. Same for Father.

Liars, the both of them.

There was no sign of Adora, either, which _was_ a bit of a disappointment. Teela needed to hit something alive, something that could hit her back, and Adora would have been the ideal candidate. Adora probably wanted to hit something too, to judge by the overwhelmed look she'd been wearing as they'd all returned to the palace last night.

It was a terrible game of "would you rather". Would you rather learn that your best friend and father had been deceiving you for ages and letting you make an idiot of yourself (that _stupid_ crush), or would you rather learn that you'd been kidnapped by an evil magician and your parents had been dead for five hundred years?

Teela brought her staff down on the battle orb with a little too much force. It sparked and died with a pathetic _bleep bloop_.

She stopped, breathing hard, and wiped the sweat from her forehead as she regarded the battle orb lying in the dirt. "Yeah," she told it. "Me too."

She collapsed her staff and stuck it back in its place on her belt, then walked over to where she'd left her canteen. The water tasted metallic. An improvement. Dinner had tasted like ashes, and breakfast - well, she hadn't even tried. Anger tended to kill her appetite.

She took another swig. She was completely right to be angry, of course, but she also knew that any reprieve from Hordak was going to be temporary. Sooner or later - definitely sooner, the way her luck ran - she was going to have to go into battle with Father and He-Man. Adam.

Who she'd mooned over in one guise and kissed in another.

 _Ugh!_ She needed to hit something.

"I know, I know, I'm late," Adam said behind her, cheerful as the bright morning sun. "But better late than -"

He didn't get to finish because she whirled around and brought her staff down, striking at the join of his neck and shoulders, and he was too busy jumping backwards.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "What gives?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said acidly. "It's not like you've been _lying to me_."

He looked around, no doubt checking for eavesdroppers, but there weren't any; the only other people awake at this hour weren't crazy enough to be out training. "I couldn't tell you, okay? The Sorceress said I couldn't tell anyone."

"My father knew." And that hurt enough that she flinched away from thinking about it further.

Adam shrugged. "He knows everything."

As an attempt at humor, it fell flat, but it was the truth. She leaned on her staff. "Anyone else know?"

"Cringer, of course," he said. He rubbed the back of his head, wincing ahead of the next part: "And, um… Orko. But I didn't tell him! He found out by accident."

That was so purely Orko that Teela couldn't be upset about it. She wasn't going to let Adam off the hook for it, though. "So _Orko_ got to know," she said. "But not me."

"Hey, I _tried_ to tell you. More than once -"

"You did not!"

He shook his head vehemently. "You just don't remember because you were too busy calling me a coward!"

"Gee, I wonder why! Maybe because you were running away from every fight and _lying to me_ about it!"

He scowled, then blew out a heavy breath, straightened his shoulders, and went back to being conciliatory. "Well, I'm here now, and I owe you a sparring session, so… maybe we can start over with that?"

She stared at him. Okay, _that_ was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard.

He'd brought a staff, and expanded it now, turning it over in his hands to find his grip. "We're still friends, right?"

Wow. In the space of a minute, Whiplash and Clawful had just dropped out of the top three on the "dumbest things said aloud" list.

"I don't know," she said. She raised her staff to ready position. "Do friends lie to each other?"

"Yeah, sometimes. I was trying to keep you safe - to keep everyone safe," he said, mirroring her move. "And it's not some imaginary concern. I mean, Skeletor grabbed _me_ the second he thought I knew anything about He-Man."

She struck, and they traded a few blows, settling into the rhythm of it. "Yeah, even bad guys get it right sometimes, huh?"

His eyes narrowed, but he decided to ignore her. "He's already tried to kill my father, and he's captured _you_ lots of times. I'm not going to put more targets on people I - uh, you know, my friends. And family. And - you know."

She knew.

She wasn't blushing. Her face was red because she was angry and sweaty. Not because she was remembering kissing him. No. There was no reason to blush over a _liar_.

She jabbed the butt of her staff into his stomach. Not too hard. Just hard enough for an "oof!" and an "ow!"

"Poor you," she said, mocking. "It must be so _difficult_."

"It is," he said, one hand rubbing his stomach. No more ignoring; he was irritated with her, enough to let it show. "I don't like lying to people. Especially you."

"But you did anyway."

"Because I had to! C'mon, Teela, give me a break."

She aimed the staff at his head. He dodged, and the staff hit one of the field's wooden boundary poles instead. The pole splintered.

"Not the break I meant," he said.

Teela rolled her eyes. "You're not nearly as funny as you think you are."

He jumped on top of another pole to avoid her next move. "What else am I supposed to do? You're not listening to me."

"Oh, I heard you." She jumped onto the adjacent pole and pressed forward, forcing him to hop backwards one or forfeit the high ground. "You couldn't tell me. So you didn't."

"Then why are you still mad at me?" he demanded. He blocked her strike but lost his balance in the process, and the fight was back on solid, dusty earth. "I thought we'd be okay by now!"

"What part makes it okay? The part where _you lied to me_ –" she swept the staff around in a low attack that would've broken his ankle if he hadn't leapt clear – "or the part where _you felt really bad about it_?"

He was angry now. She could see it in the dark scowl and tight jaw, not to mention the ferocity in his next strike. "It's not like that! I _wanted_ to tell you!"

She blocked, attacked, dodged. "But you didn't."

"I _couldn't_." Their staffs met and locked, both of them straining to shift the advantage.

She met his eyes, wanting him to see – to really _see_ – how angry she was. "That's the same thing!"

He pushed harder, a sudden forward surge which brought home the fact that he was going to be bigger than she was, someday very soon – that he already had the edge on her, strength-wise. The move broke their stalemate and now she was the one who leapt clear.

They eyed each other for a moment, both of them breathing hard, but before she could attack again, Adam dropped out of his stance.

Teela did, too, though she didn't lower her staff as he did. No: she kept hers up to guard against the next blow. Probably futile. The snake had never cared how many bruises her heart took.

"At least, it feels the same," she said, biting off each word. "It feels like… like my best friend – like you're _not_. Like you've never been."

And now there was that kiss hanging over the whole thing, just making it all more complicated and painful.

She didn't mention that.

He didn't mention it either, which somehow made it echo louder.

She waited another few heartbeats, then collapsed her staff, turned, and began walking off the training field.

Behind her, Adam said quietly, "I'm sorry."

She didn't look back. Instead she drew a deep breath. The oxygen seemed to inflame the fire in her gut, stoking it white-hot. "That's great," she said to the air in front of her, but loudly enough that he was sure to hear. "Keep doing that. I'll let you know when it's enough."

 _It'll never be enough_ , her anger hissed.

 _You'll regret walking away like this_ , another part of her warned. The stupid part. The one that wasn't sorry she'd kissed him. The one that dragged at her feet now, making her want to stay and talk about things.

Things. How about "lies and betrayal."

She stiffened her spine and picked up her pace.

Behind her, Adam called out, "Teela, wait –!"

She ignored that, and the running footfalls coming ever closer. She wasn't going to give that lying, betraying _jerk_ the satisfaction of seeing her run from him.

But she couldn't ignore his hand grabbing her shoulder.

Without thinking about it – without pausing – as if she'd been doing it every day of her life – Teela spun around and pushed Adam away with a blast of magic energy from her open palm.

It sent him flying backwards, his blue eyes wide with fright, his fair hair whipped by the wind –

 _No_ , she thought. She might have yelled it.

But he was already landing, hard, sliding across the packed dirt of the training field and coming to a stop where it turned to grass.

She ran over to him, heart in her throat.

"Adam! I didn't –" She bit off _I didn't mean to do that_ , too much like what he'd just been telling her, and went with, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said, climbing to his feet unaided. The arm he'd slid on was scraped (probably his ribs and leg, too) but he was otherwise unharmed. He dusted futilely at his clothes. Far from being angry, he looked… worried. Scared. "Since when can you do _that_?"

Teela looked at her hand, at the faint trace of green-colored magic still lingering there.

 _Positively_ _ **overflowing**_ _with magical energy,_ Evil-Lyn had said at the beginning of all this. And Queen Angella had told her, _The Crystal Castle will only open to a bearer of magic_. And there was Queen Veena, and going inside spells, and warning buzzes down her spine, and each and every dream-vision.

So, okay. Maybe it wasn't a _total_ surprise.

She clenched her fist and the magic flared weakly before dissipating altogether. Then she looked at Adam.

"I think I need to talk to the Sorceress."

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 **end**

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 **Note:** Thank you to everyone who's read this (much longer than I expected) story, whether you left a review or not. It was a tremendous amount of fun to write, and I'm frankly relieved to have this idea finally out of my head and fully onto paper. Whew!


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